


a conundrum of lightsabers

by wombathos



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Redemption, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey & Rose Tico Friendship, a little fraught but they're trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 52,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombathos/pseuds/wombathos
Summary: In the aftermath of Crait, Rey is left with two halves of a broken lightsaber she has no idea how to fix. As her force bond conversations with Ben continue, she comes to understand he's the only one who can help her with her problem.Maybe if they can repair one thing, they can repair something else too.
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa & Rey, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rose Tico, Poe Dameron & Rey, Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 17
Kudos: 90
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	1. Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devon380black (kryptonian17)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptonian17/gifts).



> For the prompt: Kylo Ren helps Rey mend the Skywalker legacy lightsaber and in the process they reach a compromise and help each other end the war. (also incorporating: The Rise of Skywalker AU. Kylo Ren and Rey struggle with being connected through the Force while balancing their responsibilities with their respective sides in the war (First Order and Resistance).)
> 
> This was a lot of fun to work on, thank you!

“What do you want?”

It was the most civil opening Rey could manage, given everything that had happened. Given how they had parted. Given who she was now facing, like he had never even gone.

After Crait, the force bond _had_ pretty much closed. Well, closed with a bit of extra help when needed. Rey had been able to shut it off a few times when it started opening, having gained _some_ control over its presence ever since she had shut the door on him. But now it was back in full force, like it refused to be denied any longer.

“I didn’t ask for this,” said the man sitting opposite to her, looking balefully at her. Ben… Kylo Ren… No, she still couldn’t go back to thinking of him that way. Despite the clothes and the title and the hostility in his expression, the person she had come to know as Ben was still written all over the shell of his face. Peaking through the facade.

“Neither did I.”

“You managed to cut me off. So I assume it’s your fault we’re speaking again.”

Rey bared her teeth. “We are _not_ speaking again.”

“My mistake,” he retorted. “I thought that’s what you call it when I say something and you say something back.”

It was a weak line by any measure, but it was still enough to infuriate her. She glared at Ben. “I hear you’re Supreme Leader of the First Order now.”

“I hear you’re the Resistance’s prized Jedi.”

Rey refused to let him know how much that description annoyed her. “Been raiding any villages recently?”

“Been hiding in any?”

“As if I’d ever tell you,” she said, then added - “ _Ben_ ” - for good measure, as if she were mocking him by using the name.

He flinched at the sound, so it was nice to know she still had _some_ power over him. Though why she’d even care was beyond her.

“I’ll tell your mother you said hello,” said Rey.

Ben’s lips quivered, then he leaned forward. “Will you?” he murmured.

She frowned at him, not sure what he meant.

“Does Organa know you talk to me?” he asked, his gaze fixing her with that horrible intensity. She gritted her teeth, a scowl digging into her brow. It was answer enough. “You still haven’t told them.”

“Haven’t told them what?”

“Our connection in the Force,” he said, humouring her. “Do they know what happened on the Supremacy?”

The anger rose in her, making its way into her voice. “I don’t lie to them.”

“No,” he said softly. “You just conceal and deceive. The only person you _lie_ to is yourself.”

“What about you?” she asked, rattled but determined not to show it. “Do your _troops_ know who really killed Snoke?”

A pause. “I don’t play at being friends with them.”

They held each other’s gazes, each trying to win some silent battle. The connection broke.

* * *

The sound of the motor from outside had ground to a halt just long enough to give her hope, then started with renewed fervour. Rey groaned, barely hearing herself. You could say many things about the desert, but at least it wasn’t this damn loud.

She flopped off the bunk, reaching under it to find the Jedi texts she kept wrapped up carefully in her satchel. Scattered next to them were the broken pieces of her lightsaber. Leia had told her to be careful not to lose any of the pieces, but Leia also hadn’t given her a single useful piece of advice about what to _do_ with the damn things. Just some vague stuff, like _broken is not the same as lost_ or _there’s much that can be salvaged from ruins, as you well know_ or _we have everything we need_. Which was nice and all, but not particularly helpful.

Rey sighed and gathered the pieces up into a small pouch she had requisitioned for that purpose. She always kept it with here, whether as a sentimental keepsake or out of the forlorn hope that one day she would take it out and it would be whole again, that the thing would somehow magically repair itself and she’d have her weapon back. Thus far it hadn’t worked. Leia was right about one thing, though - Rey wasn’t about to throw away old things without being _absolutely_ certain she couldn’t make use of them. That was the scavenger way. Worst came to worst, she could always repurpose the pieces as spare parts. Rey snorted, imagining the reaction Finn would have to that. Or better yet, Ben.

No. Dangerous - _dangerous_ \- thought path.

 _Don’t think about him_.

She sighed.

At least they had moved away from those hellish few weeks right after Crait when almost the entire Resistance had remained on the Falcon, scurrying from one galactic enclave to the next in search of shelter. They’d been granted a brief reprieve through some of Chewie’s old contacts in the criminal underground before finally finding some political friends of Leia’s who had been too cowardly to help them on Crait but were willing to let them hide in their spheres of influence. Rey wished she could’ve dumped most of the Resistance there and gone on _any_ solo mission with the Falcon, but apparently the darn thing was a bit too valuable to the cause at the moment.

As was she. Apparently.

A knock on the door interrupted her sulk.

Rey sat up a little straighter, convinced her shift hadn’t started yet. She’d meant to take a nap but never quite gotten to it, so had resolved to use the time to think. Still, it wasn’t like she could just ignore whoever wanted something from her. That wasn’t how the Resistance worked.

“Yeah?”

A pause. “Can I come in?”

“Oh. Eh - yeah.”

The door slid open and a small woman stepped through. A Resistance engineer who looked somewhat familiar, probably because she’d seen all the Resistance fighters by now. Not many of them left.

“Hey,” said the diminutive woman. “Sorry, I know we haven’t really met yet. I’m Rose.”

Oh yeah. Finn’s friend. She’d been knocked out when they had carried her onto the Falcon, hadn’t she? Rey looked her up and down - she seemed to have recovered all right. “I’m Rey.”

“Yeah,” said Rose, smiling slightly and looking Rey up and down in turn. It gave Rey a sinking feeling in her gut. She couldn’t take any other Resistance people going on about how she was a hero or a Jedi or going to save them all right now. “Finn’s told me a lot about you. You sound pretty amazing.” She smiled warmly.

Rey gave an awkward shrug.

“Anyway, I’ve also heard you used to be a scavenger and I’m trying to repair this medical droid with old imperial parts I’ve never seen before,” said Rose, all in a rush. “I don’t suppose you could take a look at it?”

Rey blinked. This wasn’t what she was expecting. She couldn’t recall anyone in the Resistance asking her for mechanic-related help rather than… Force-lifting things or whatever.

Rose was waiting, looking apprehensive like she feared she’d overstepped. Rey smiled at her.

“Sure,” she said, grabbed her pouch and stood up to follow Rose.

They made their way down the maze of corridors with enough turns Rey was beginning to lose track of where they were, into a part of their latest hideout she hadn’t seen before. A part where the engine was considerably less infuriating.

“Wow,” said Rey. “It’s almost quiet here.”

Rose smiled at her. “Yeah. Furthest corner away from the motors. I don’t mind the sound, myself, but I know it can get a bit much for some people.”

“Yeah, it can,” said Rey with feeling.

“Well anyway, here it is. Tell me if you need any tools.”

They got to work, Rey putting down the pouch beside her and carefully inspecting the droid. She worked in silence for a few minutes, before eventually realising she’d left the pouch lying open and Rose was now staring down at the lightsaber.

Rose noticed Rey watching her stare at the lightsaber. “Um,” she said, flustered. “Sorry. I’ve just never seen one before. If that’s - that’s a lightsaber, right?”

“It used to be,” said Rey. “Now it’s just scrap metal.”

Rose hesitated, gaze flitting between Rey and the satchel. “Could I…”

“Go ahead.”

Rose pulled the satchel towards her and picked up the lightsaber pieces with a reverence that was foreign to Rey. “Wow,” she whispered, carefully turning them over in her hands.

“They’re pretty useless now.”

She ran her finger over the longest part of the hilt. “You’re an expert at repurposing scrap metal, right?”

Their eyes met. Rey hesitated, then nodded. Yeah, she _was_. She just kind of had to… get back into the rhythm. She could figure this out.

“Got any tips?” she asked.

“Um,” said Rose, almost apprehensive. “I’m not an expert. I can… well, we can think our way through this, right?”

Rey nodded.

“Do you recognise any of the parts?”

She bent down to examine the pieces. “Those are modulation circuits,” she said, pointing them out. “They’re shot, but you could probably figure out how to replace them. Might be made of something special.”

“I bet you could have them repaired,” said Rose. “I know someone who used to run circuits ‘round Kirtzoff. He knew specialists for this kind of build, I think.”

“Really?” asked Rey. “Could you get us in touch?”

Rose’s gaze dropped. “They died,” she said shortly.

“Oh,” said Rey.

There was an awkward silence.

“Tell you what, though,” said Rose. “That metal can’t be too hard to meld.”

“Yeah,” said Rey. She focused on the lightsaber again, laying it out on the cloth cover and poking at some of the pieces. “This was the cell, I think.”

“Power cell?” Rose frowned down at it. “So that’d be connected here and here…” She emitted a low humming sound. “And some form of energy gate?”

“Yeah. It’d create the matrix -”

“- that controls blade emission,” Rose finished. She pointed down at the bit broken in two. “What’s that?”

“That,” said Rey, “is the crystal.” She sat back with a scowl. “It’s the central component of lightsabers. It’s also the part I have no clue how to fix.”

“Could you ask General Organa? She might know.”

Rey shook her head. “I did, and she said she’d help, but she also doesn’t know that much and she’s been very busy. Obviously. She did say that I should look at the Jedi texts I… took from Ach-To.”

“From…” Rose started. “Oh. That’s where Luke Skywalker was?”

“Yeah.”

“And you got Jedi texts from there?”

“Yeah. The _sacred Jedi texts_ he called them, but they haven’t been much help. I’m also not really an expert on the whole… studying old texts thing.”

“I could help,” said Rose eagerly. “I don’t know how much I can help but I’ve looked at plenty of engineering plans over the time so maybe it won’t be - I - I mean if you want…”

Rey smiled at her and nodded. “Okay. Agreed.”

She left the workshop that afternoon with the unexpected impression she had just made a new friend.

* * *

When the force bond next appeared, Rey quickly shoved the Jedi text she was scouring under her satchel, then turned to scowl at Ben.

“Can you stop doing that?”

She realised then that he’d been sitting on the ground, knees pulled tight to his chest, but he was hurriedly straightening himself so that he towered over her once more. “I can’t control it any more than you can.”

“Well, you should _learn_.”

Ben didn’t answer, having refocused. “I can see certain parts of where you are,” he said. “Like the chair you’re sitting on. More than before. Can you see any aspect of my surroundings?”

“I’m busy.”

“Is the bond getting stronger?” he asked, looking at her and at the space around her in curiosity.

“It should have stopped entirely,” said Rey. “I walked away. It’s over.”

Ben searched her face, then slowly shook his head. She hated it when he looked at her like that, with curiosity and something else she couldn’t quite identify. Why couldn’t he just get angry when she provoked him like any normal person would? “I don’t think so. If you really want to shut yourself off from me, you could.”

“It was Snoke -”

“I don’t think it was,” said Ben. “Maybe he eased the connection. Opened the floodgates, if you will. But you know he didn’t create what’s between us.”

“No,” said Rey, trying to summon up her anger, “you did when you forced your way into my mind.”

“You returned the favour. Maybe that’s what did it.”

She took a deep breath, realising her breathing was way too heavy as she silently seethed at him.

“The Resistance can’t hide forever.”

“The Resistance will fight back!” she said, words bursting out of her mouth - self-control be damned. “You won’t win this.”

“There’s barely anything left.”

“It’s enough,” she said. “You’ll see.”

She half-expected him to mock her. He didn’t. “It didn’t have to be this way,” he said.

What? The war? Them? The way they were reduced to sniping at each other through a bond neither of them could quite shut off? “I saw you turn.”

“I killed Snoke.”

“Just to take his place?”

“You came to me.”

“You chose the First Order.”

“What did you expect when you shipped yourself to the Supremacy?” He paused, gaze travelling over all corners of her face once again. “Did you expect me to go back with you to the Resistance? Did you think Organa would greet me with open arms after I killed her husband? That the First Order would simply dissolve itself?”

Rey felt her fury rise with every new word.“What about you? Did you think I’d just let all my friends die? Should I have joined the people who tried to kill me, who abduct children and murder innocents?”

“Then this was inevitable,” Ben said, a bitter finality to his words.

“No, it wasn’t,” said Rey. “You made a _choice_. It was the wrong one.”

“I chose to move forwards rather than clinging on to the past.”

“You chose the First Order and they’re nothing but cruel, vicious monsters who -”

“I can change them,” Ben exclaimed, genuine passion creeping into his voice. “I can _make_ the galaxy better.”

“And how’s that going?”

Ben seemed to already be regretting his words. Rey could see his teeth tugging ever so slightly at his lower lip.“You’re deluding yourself if you think the Resistance can restore peace.”

She fixed him with a cold glare. “ _Anything’s_ better than the First Order ruling.”

And the bond shimmered out of existence again, gracious enough to give her the last word.

* * *

Rey had barely met Poe before he had gone of on a series of expeditions to _rally their allies_ , as Resistance people kept calling it. Rumours were, he was having mixed successes. Giving everything that had happened on Crait, it was hardly surprising that resentment was widespread.

“None of them came to help,” said Finn in a bitter tone, who had joined her at her blaster practice. She had picked up the habit partly for something to do, partly because… well, she needed a weapon that wasn’t a staff. “I don’t know who he hopes to find.”

“It’s different now,” said Rey, taking a sip of water as she stared moodily at the target she had missed half of the time. “People have heard of what Luke Skywalker did.”

“But he’s gone,” said Finn. “I know what he did was - We’ve all heard. But he’s gone.” He looked over at her, almost nervously. “We do have you though.”

Her heart sank in a familiar way. “I’m not Skywalker.”

“He trained you.”

She struggled to suppress a snort, not willing to share just how little she had been ‘trained’ by Skywalker. Instead she stayed silent.

“Rey. People believe in you.”

Rey stood up abruptly, looking down at a startled Finn. “It’s not me,” she said. Finn’s brow furrowed in confusion, but before he could ask what she meant she went on - “If they want anyone to believe in, they can believe in Leia. She’s his sister and she’s done this way longer than I have. If the Resistance wants to survive, they need to do better than believing in a single Jedi standing down the First Order with a lightsaber.” She paused to consider what she had said, then huffed a laugh. “And I don’t even have one of those.”

Finn stared at her for a long moment, then reached for the blaster she’d left lying there and held it out towards her. “It’s not easy, not being what they want you to be,” he said, unusually calm. “But you can’t just walk away.”

She held his gaze with a frown, then accepted the blaster, turning it over in her hands in a vaguely dissatisfied way. “You really think we can win this?”

No answer. Eventually Rey stopped staring at the blaster to look at Finn, but his gaze had dropped and he was examining the ground below, jaw clenched.

Yeah, she knew how he felt all right. If he had asked her right then and there what had really happened on the Supremacy, and why she had ever gone there, she probably would have told him. Right now neither of them had the energy to lie to each other.

But he didn’t ask. So she didn’t tell.

* * *

“What happened to the lightsaber?”

“Stop asking questions.”

“It was gone when I woke up. You took it?”

“Yeah, well. I wasn’t going to leave it behind for you.”

He stepped closer to where she had been sitting on her bed, brow knotting in anger. Then, his gaze happened to fall by chance to the satchel resting next to her. Rey tracked his gaze and silently cursed. The lightsaber pieces were lying in there. She really needed to learn to shut the damn thing.

Ben’s eyes widened and he seemed incapable of wrenching his gaze away for quite some time. Rey watched him warily, as if he could actually take it from her.

“It’s broken,” said Ben eventually.

“Yeah,” said Rey, then paused. “Hold up. You didn’t know?”

Ben looked up to scowl at her. “How would I know? The last thing I remember was you pulling it from me and then a blinding flash of light. By the time I woke up you were both gone.”

“Huh,” said Rey, scowling right back at him as she folded her arms. “Now you know.”

Ben swallowed and looked again from the broken lightsaber to her. “I thought when Skywalker… But of course, that was an illusion.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” said Ben. “We broke the lightsaber? How is that even possible?”

Rey shrugged. “We both pulled really hard?”

“That lightsaber belonged to my grandfather.”

There was something melancholic and semi-reproachful about his tone. She really didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s a shame,” she settled for, nodding in a sagely manner. “There’s not exactly many of them to go around.” She remembered too late that she probably shouldn’t be telling Ben she didn’t have any alternative weapons at her disposal.

He was glaring at her now. “It was a priceless artefact.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have pulled on it so hard then,” she snapped.

“ _I pulled_?” echoed Ben disbelievingly. “You’re the one who started!”

“Only because you were being so - so _you_ ,” she said angrily, waving generally with a hand at all of him, then stood up so she was _slightly_ less short in front of him. “You already had a lightsaber. All I wanted was to take mine back.”

“You could have just _asked_ ,” spat Ben.

“You could have gone a different way,” retorted Rey, equally angry. “You left me with no choice.”

“I _gave_ you a choice.”

“A bad one!”

“That’s still a choice!”

They stared at each other, both breathing a little more heavily and both glaring daggers at the other. But they had once again reached an impasse, so both contended themselves to just glaring in silence a little longer.

“Do you have all the pieces?” asked Ben.

“Why?”

Ben exhaled loudly. “Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know how to fix it?”

Rey glared some more at him.

“I’m taking that as a no,” said Ben.

By now she was really tempted to try out whether punching would work through the force bond. “You’re the great lightsaber expert now? I’ve seen yours. It sucks.”

Ben looked very nearly miffed; there was something sweet about how his jaw grew a little tighter and his eyelids twitched -

Rey’s thought track slid to a shuddering halt. What was she _thinking_? There was _nothing_ at all _sweet_ about the _Supreme Leader_ of their sworn _enemies_ -

“At least it works. Which is more than I can say about yours. Did you manage to salvage _all_ the pieces?”

“I said yes!” said Rey, irritable.

“Then you should -” He suddenly stopped and turned to the side. His expression had changed instantly and - however irritated he might’ve been at Rey - it was far colder now. She didn’t like it.

That was the last she saw of him before the connection broke again. Rey sat there in silence for a while, thinking about Ben’s expression and the lightsaber and everything broken. _He called it_ my _lightsaber_ , she suddenly realised. She had no idea why that should mean anything to her.

Rey sighed and went to find Rose.

* * *

With another week passing, they had moved once again. Rey flew a mission, got back to the news that a bunch of new recruits had been blown up by a First Order squadron.

“That’ll do wonders for recruitment,” said Rey to a sombre Rose.

She nodded grimly. “You can tell they all want to chicken out. Everyone we recruit is itching to defect. It’s a nightmare.”

“And no way of fixing it,” Rey agreed.

But Rose gave her a look.

“What?”

Rose hesitated, then said - “It helps, you know. Whenever you’re out there, whenever people see you. It reminds them of Luke Skywalker.”

Rey was beginning to hate that name. “I’m not him.”

“I know that,” said Rose. “Sorry, I won’t annoy you with it. But it does mean something to people.”

“They think I’m another Jedi,” said Rey. “I’m not. He didn’t train me. I have a couple of old books that even the Jedi gave up on eons ago. I don’t know any of their ways. I don’t even have a damn lightsaber.”

It took Rose another hesitation or two to go on. “Does it matter so much? There are other weapons…”

“It’s a Jedi’s weapon,” she said dully. “How are people meant to believe in me if I don’t even look the part?”

* * *

Rey did bring up the recruits when she saw Ben later the same day. What the point of this was she wasn’t quite sure but at least she was saying _something_.

“Those people died today because of the First Order. Because of you.”

“We lost a squadron yesterday. Your friends killed them.”

“Those things are not the same.”

“How so?”

“Because you’re _wrong_.”

“Ah. I would say the same to you.”

“You want to rule the galaxy. We want to free it.”

“And then what? Back to the _peace_ and _security_ of the New Republic?” He leaned forwards. “Do you think they even know the difference on Jakku? Did the New Republic ever have enough of a presence on Jakku for its people to feel their absence?”

“They felt it when the First Order came to murder innocents!”

“Yet no one lifted a finger to protect its children from slavery. Or have you already forgotten?”

She bared her teeth at him. “You think you can lecture me on how bad Jakku was? I _know_.”

“And you don’t want to change it?”

“I don’t agree with your methods.”

“What if they’re the only way?”

“They aren’t,” she said. “All you’re doing is creating new orphans.”

“You think the Resistance’s assaults are without casualties? That’s just war.”

“Then _end_ it.”

“I’m trying to. There’s only one way this war is ending. You _know_ the Resistance is too weak to win.”

Rey opened her mouth to issue a stinging retort, but to her fury she could feel her eyes watering. She closed her eyes quickly, angrily swallowing the beginnings of a sob and breathing in through a suddenly constricted throat. _No_ , she told herself. _Don’t you dare do this. Don’t you dare_.

She had to end this, _now_. Rey opened her eyes and summoned all her willpower to cut off the connection, shut him out as she had once done so successfully, however briefly. But before Ben vanished, she got a last glimpse of him - stricken, mouth open in horrified surprise at her reaction, eyes watering almost as much as hers had been. He had never looked younger. His expression imprinted herself on her mind, and as she went about her business for the rest of the day and as she lay awake at night, she carried it with her. For some reason, it made her feel better. Maybe it was knowing he still cared.

* * *

It wasn’t long before she got bored of training with the blaster. Not like she didn’t appreciate the weapon, but her aim had improved a lot with the help of the Force and there was only so much she could do before straight-up committing to training as a sniper. Which might make her more useful than she currently was. Still, lightsabers had been less of an adjustment given her experience with the staff than this darn thing.

But her answer to that particular dilemma continued to elude her. She began spending the time she’d use for blaster practice sitting down cross-legged somewhere fairly quiet - whenever she found such a spot - and breathing calmly, meditating while gently touching the lightsaber. It hadn’t given her any visions since she’d broken it, but she was hoping that maybe if she connected with the Force the broken crystal could beam a handy map to a lightsaber repair shop into her brain.

It hadn’t worked yet.

With Poe out there rallying potential allies, he had let her know that people were beginning to ask questions about _her_. Apparently, she was some kind of hope to cling on to. He seemed roughly as thrilled about this as she felt, but he still said it might not be a bad idea to go along on some recruitment missions, lift some rocks and the like. Finn said that seemed like a clear way of putting a target on her back. Rey for her part didn’t care about that, but she thought her time could be much better spent flying missions. She was, after all, a really good pilot.

Poe had yet to be convinced and let it be known whenever he was around. He wasn’t thrilled about the amount of time she was investing in her little lightsaber project either, even after multiple explanations about how important the thing was to the general Jedi mythos he was banking on, which _he_ really should’ve known. But mostly he kept his distance and occasionally, something approaching routine entered her life.

So she spent increasing amounts of time with Rose, at least being able to help with mechanical duties. It was better being alone with someone else, working in silence, being able to say she was doing something useful for the Resistance. Chewie came to visit a few times, which was nice, but apart from that they remained mostly undisturbed.

“They’ll want you to fight more again,” said Rose.

“And I’m fine with it. But I don’t think they can quite figure out what to do with me. I’m barely allowed to fly missions -”

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous for everyone. And I’m still a good pilot. They think I’m going to be some kind of magic weapon, but I keep explaining -”

“The magic weapon’s broken.”

Rey nodded. “Luke kept telling me about the myth of the Jedi and how they got it all wrong.”

“But then he did face down the entire First Order.”

“Yeah, but on the grand scale of things…”

“Rey, it mattered. A lot.”

“Don’t even have a lightsaber,” muttered Rey.

“Just bash people with your staff then. You’re lethal with the thing.”

“Staff’s not the same once you’ve had something that can slice through stone.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “You can lift stones _with your mind_. Really big ones too.”

Rey huffed. “I can’t _slice_ through them.”

At this, Rose threw up her hands in exasperation, but let her be.

* * *

“Rey -”

“I don’t want to do this any more.”

“You -”

“Can’t we just ignore each other?” She spun to glare at Ben, who looked back impassively. Ugh, she wanted to reach over and grab his glossy hair and _pull_ it really hard and -

“Is that what you want?” asked Ben.

It was so unfair when he used that voice. It was so unfair when she could see the wetness in his eyes, could see the yearning, could remember sensing the loneliness inside him as if feeling a reflection of himself…

What if she said yes? Would he really leave her alone?

“I can’t just ignore you _murdering_ people I know.”

“I want to end the war.”

“Yeah. By having your - your murderous, vile, Dark-sider empire-obsessive _cult_ …” She trailed off, trying to remember more of the colourful descriptors she’d heard in her time with the Resistance. “I won’t let you create a new empire.”

Ben half-raised one foot like he was intending to step forward. Then awkwardly placed it on the ground again, chest leaning towards her a little as if swayed by an invisible wind. “I wanted to move beyond that. No Jedi, no Sith. I told you.”

“ _After_ you’d finished murdering my friends!”

“There’s always a cost, Rey.”

“Not that.”

“You have to let go -”

“ _I_ have to let go? I didn’t care about the Resistance, I cared about my friends! About people who didn’t deserve to die! You say you want to kill the past, but all you ever do is let it push you around. It’s blinding you.” She clamped her mouth shut after this little speech, opening it enough to take a breath through gritted teeth.

Ben had gone very still, eyes glistening even as the rest of his face remained frozen. “I’m not the one who’s running from my past.”

“You _are_.”

“At least I can accept it. At least I know what I am. You’re still keeping secrets from your Resistance friends, Organa, _yourself_. You’ll never be free like this. Never.”

Rey blinked repeatedly, determined to not have a repeat of their last conversation. “Better that then enslaved by the First Order,” she hissed.

Ben flinched as if she had struck him. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“I don’t know where you are,” said Ben. “But I’ll find you, sooner or later.”

“And then what?”

Ben paused. It was obvious he didn’t have a response to that. He faded away before he found one.

* * *

Weeks passed. Her shooting improved and that let her put off reading more of the Jedi texts, which was in part due to the dawning realisation of just how dull these things were. She’d gone on a mission or three, snuck a bunch of trainee arsonists out from a First Order stronghold, which had been interesting if nothing else. Unsurprisingly there had been explosions.

And all the while, the bond glitched in and out of existence. It was a constant concern she couldn’t share with anyone, yet Rey felt herself gaining more control over it. Certainly she could keep it at bay for longer, not allowing Ben the chance to see anything she didn’t want him to. They never spoke of it, but she sensed that he did the same on his end. Yet it also seemed more persistent, creeping into smaller moments of the day so that sometimes she would see flashes of him, half a sentence or small glimpses of his surroundings.

“You’re as lonely as ever,” said Ben. “You think you can hide it?”

“I can,” spat Rey, then realised what she had admitted, and Ben’s face told her he knew too.

“Not from me,” he said.

At least she was getting pretty confident he wasn’t overhearing any of those sensitive meetings. _She_ couldn’t, anyway, and she was pretty sure he shut her out now and again. Less often than she did. Once she saw half a minute of a First Order strategy meeting until Ben had noticed her and furiously dismissed everyone. All the while all she could focus on was how miserable he looked.

“Still don’t have a lightsaber?”

“Still not won the war?”

Neither of them were using their best material, but somehow it was safer exchanging meaningless barbs. At least she didn’t have to put on a smile for him and could just snarl and glare at him. At least she could be silent around him, when her throat hurt after having to talk _so much_ to _so many people_. She never told him any of that, of course. Didn’t stop her from wondering what he was getting out of it. Maybe the same as her.

* * *

Strategy meetings were never much fun, but at least most of them didn’t end with her shouting and storming out of the meeting. It wasn’t even like she was invited too many, but she had made a request and apparently the request had to be _approved_. The whole thing was so stupid - she just wanted to quickly pop down to Takodana and get some handy lightsaber repair tips from the woman who had gotten her the thing in the first place. But Leia wasn’t around and Poe said no and they had started yelling at each other and it had all spiralled out of control.

At least she’d stopped herself from throwing something at him. Just about.

Finn managed to follow her barely thirty feet before she rounded on him. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

“Maybe you should,” said Finn evenly. “Might be more helpful then letting out your anger at me. _I_ didn’t do anything.”

Rey paused, having to fight hard to get some measure of control over her emotions, then nodded. “Sorry for snapping at you,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Finn. “We all have bad days.”

They exchanged a smile. Kriff, how she wished she could have a regular heart-to-heart with Finn and just… relax. With her actual friend. Or any of the other perfectly lovely people in the Resistance. Why did it _have_ to be the Supreme Leader of the kriffing First Order? Why was that the only person she felt any semblance of sanity around even when he was driving her mad?

She sighed.

“White wampa ale for your thoughts?” asked Finn.

Rey raised her eyebrows at him.

“Poe’s been teaching me Resistance lingo. I’m eighty percent convinced he’s making at least some of them up.”

“Sure.”

“So? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” said Rey. “I just really wanted to go see Maz.” She was half-tempted to sneak there anyway, but there was no reason to tell Finn that.

“Please don’t sneak off.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” said Rey in annoyance.

Finn gave her a look.

She sighed again. “Whatever. Poe would probably shoot down my ship rather than let me get away with it.”

“He’s not a bad guy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“If you do want to sneak off though,” said Finn and she instantly perked up. “I’m not saying you should, don’t look like that! _But_ we did get a batch of civilian clothing arrive today and well… they’d be useful disguises.” He looked her up and down. “Besides, your clothes are looking pretty worn.”

She lightly punched his arm.

“Ow!” said Finn, rubbing his arm. “So do you want to come or not?”

“We’d be stealing?”

“No. You literally have first pick.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Takes something off the appeal away, somehow,” she muttered. “Fine, let’s go.”

Half an hour and she’d found a white vest, throwing it over dark grey wraps before quickly wrapping black bandages over her arms. She fixed her hair in a single sloppy bun and checked herself out in the mirror. It was still just Rey staring back, but she really liked the vest.

* * *

When Ben saw her the next time, he didn’t comment on her change in outfit. There was, however, something odd about how his gaze travelled up and down her entire body, like it had that very first time they’d seen each other without his mask in the way.

He quickly started talking about lightsabers, barely looking at her as he did so. Maybe he didn’t like the vest.

“Hasn’t Organa offered advice?”

“Leia doesn’t know how to repair it,” said Rey, staring down at it. _I’ll ask Maz Kanata about it_ , she didn’t say. She looked up to glare at him. “Nice job _ruining_ your family’s lightsaber.”

“ _You_ pulled it away from _me_.”

“And you stopped me!”

“I held out my hand and you summoned a weapon. How exactly did you expect me to respond?”

She didn’t even know what to say to that.

“So you have no one to go to for advice?”

“I’ll figure it out on my own,” said Rey.

“Really? Intending to drop by Takodana any time soon?”

Rey couldn’t quite conceal her shock before scowling at Ben. _Drat_. “Why Takodana?”

“You had to get that lightsaber from somewhere and it seems the most likely place. Kanata’s an old family friend, you know.”

“You knew the lightsaber was there?”

“Of course I didn’t. Do you really think I wouldn’t have picked up my grandfather’s lightsaber earlier if I had known?”

“I could’ve gotten it on Jakku or from your dad or -”

“All right,” said Ben, cutting her off and sounding considerably more curt than usual. “But you clearly _didn’t_. You as much as confirmed it.”

Rey sniffed. “I’ll figure something out.”

“So you’ve said. I wouldn’t waste your time, the old woman may talk a good game but when it comes to the practicalities of Jedi weapons, she’s out of her league.”

“Right! Then I won’t ask Maz or your mother or anyone else, I’ll just use my own skills as a scavenger who can fix things. So that’s fine!”

Ben took a deep breath as if steeling himself for something. “If you ever need help -”

“Oh, sure. You’re just going to help your enemy fix a lightsaber?”

“As I explained, I have an interest in the -”

At that moment someone knocked.

Rey jumped about a mile. “Yes?” she said, trying not to make it too squeaky as she made a vague hand-wavy motion at Ben as if she could just swipe the connection away. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“It’s Finn. Can I come in?”

“Just one moment!” she said, scrunching up her face and trying to make Ben disappear. “ _Make it stop_ ,” she quietly hissed. He rolled his eyes but stopped resisting her attempts to end the connection.

By the time she let Finn in, Ben had vanished. It was one of her closer calls. As she talked to Finn about their next mission, she wondered what she’d do if Finn found her talking into thin air. And if she’d ever tell him who she was really talking to.

* * *

“I’ve gone through all the texts at least twice now,” said Rey, tossing the text to the ground in irritation.

“Yeah,” said Rose patiently, “but you haven’t read it all yet.”

“There’s _so much_. And a lot of it is _so boring_.”

Rose nodded sympathetically. “Ancient Jedi secrets though!”

“Overrated,” muttered Rey. “I don’t get why they don’t put the lightsaber stuff on their front page. It’s the main weapon they use. _Here is how to make a lightsaber in five steps_ , page one. Then I could move on with my life and wouldn’t have to care about what some long dead Jedi were going on about.” She cut herself off, feeling vaguely guilty for talking about the Jedi in that way. It wasn’t exactly… respectful.

Rose didn’t seem to mind. “How’s your other weapon training going?”

“I can use a blaster,” said Rey. “I might not like it but… And I’m still fine with the staff. I don’t think people will even believe I’m a Jedi if I show up with a staff, though.”

“They might when you start making rocks fly.”

“Anyone can make rocks fly,” said Rey. Rose made a face and she amended - “Not anyone, okay. But Force-users. Jedi, the other ones… Y’know, Sith.”

“Yup.”

“And Be- Kylo Ren can make rocks fly and he’s hardly a Jedi.”

“Okay,” said Rose. “So here’s some advice. Show up, make rocks fly and save people. I think they’ll get the message.”

“You’d think,” muttered Rey, burying her nose into one of the books. It smelled musty. “Why couldn’t Luke have anything a bit more up to date?”

“Or an instruction manual.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was talking about!”

“How to be a Jedi.”

“How to build a lightsaber in five steps.”

“How to beat an evil empire offshoot determined to subjugate the entire galaxy.”

Rey laughed, sitting up again to flick through the book in earnest. “Most of this stuff useless. Or just straight up absurd. Look at this, here’s a story about a huge lizard who propels itself through space with a tail on fire but has been chained to a moon.”

“What?”

Rey showed her the drawing. “Apparently it almost burnt some Jedi and then they flew into the tail, and then the fire went out and it went on a rampage where it just thrashed everywhere and then they managed to chain it. The details are a little vague.”

“When was this?” asked Rose, squinting at the drawing in bemusement.

Rey shrugged. “Thousand years ago? Maybe more? Anyway, it’s not exactly the sort of thing that helps me fix a lightsaber.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of fable.”

“Huh?”

“You know. Maybe it’s meant to be a lesson about… something.”

“Not getting too close to huge lizards who fly through space?”

“Well maybe the lizard’s a stand-in for something. Like… greed or hatred or something meaningful.”

Rey raised her eyebrows and turned to Rose, giving her a long look.

“Maybe it isn’t!” said Rose defensively. “But it could be!”

“Sure,” said Rey. “But however valuable the lesson of the greedy space lizard may be, I still need to fix a kyber crystal.”

Rose shrugged. “I’d rather like to see the big lizard.”

Rey couldn’t argue with that, but doubted the rest of the galaxy would agree.

* * *

“Still not fixed the lightsaber?”

“What if one of these days I just said yes and pulled it out to stab you with it?” muttered Rey.

“Go ahead,” said Ben in a bored way.

“How come you barely ever have company when the force bond starts? I have to shut you out all the time, but you’re just sitting around in your quarters. Aren’t you meant to be leading the First Order?”

“It mostly takes care of itself.”

“So you just sit around moping?”

To her surprise, Ben didn’t respond. He barely even seemed to notice the jibe, staring off into the distance.

“Ben?”

He twitched at the name and she realised she hadn’t called him that in a while. “The offer still stands.”

“What offer?” asked Rey. _Are you asking me to join you_?

Ben frowned at her and he seemed to guess what she was thinking because he made a brief, seemingly involuntary shake of the head, frown deepening. “The lightsaber. Helping you fix it.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “If this is your way of trying to get intel…”

“What even remotely useful intel could I get from that? I already know it’s broken.”

Rey glared at her. “Maybe you’re trying to find out something about me.”

He tilted his head to one side. “I already know you, Rey.” He stood up and walked over to where she was sitting. She was tempted to move away but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction - besides, she wasn’t far from the wall.

Then he bent down, staring at her lap with concentration. Rey blinked a few times, startled, before realising the two lightsaber halves were in there. He reached forward tentatively with both hands, skimming close over the lightsaber as she busied herself trying not to care how very he close was. He froze, eyes widening. And grabbed the two lightsaber halves, picking them up and straightening.

For a moment, he looked as startled as she felt. Then his expression smoothened as he turned over the pieces in his hand. “Split right in half. That’s very hard to do.”

Rey needed a moment to compose herself. _How the kriff had he -_ “Give it back.”

Ben looked at her, eyebrows aloft. “What use would I have for a broken lightsaber? I’ve got one of my own, remember?”

“You can’t just _take_ it.”

A pause as Ben considered her. Then he reached forward, casually holding out the lightsaber to her. It was very close to her face. His hand, big enough to hold both lightsaber halves easily, was very close to her face. “If you want it, go ahead. I’m sure you’ve talked to so many people who have constructed a lightsaber of their own.”

Rey hesitated, then scowled and folded her arms. “As if you have anything to brag about,” she said, looking pointedly at Ben’s lightsaber where it was clipped to his belt.

Ben looked more than a little insulted at that. “ _What’s_ wrong with mine?”

“It’s got the things that stick out.”

“The crossguard.”

“Yeah. What’s the point of those?”

Ben made his pouty face. “They divert the excess heat from the crystal.”

“Well why is there excess heat?”

“Because… because the crystal’s cracked.”

Rey gave him a meaningful look. “So it’s damage control.”

Ben looked like he was about to snap back, but just about restrained himself. Instead he took a breath and placed the lightsaber on her lap as she got a whiff of hair in her face because apparently his _smell_ now made it through the force bond, before saying mildly, “It had to be carefully designed. I’d suggest something similar for your problem, but of course your crystal isn’t just cracked.”

No, it was split in half. Some of the edges had even splintered off into the hilt, embedding themselves into the inside of the hilt. “Did you ever try to repair yours?”

“It isn’t broken.”

She gave him her best _are you being serious_ look. “You know what I mean.”

He paused before answering, and when he did there was something odd about his tone. “That’s not how it works for me.”

Before she could ask what the kriff that meant the connection broke, leaving her to mull over all the problems she’d have to deal with sooner or later.

* * *

Begrudgingly, Rey began to use their chats to explain to Ben why she was struggling with fixing the lightsaber and all the various issues that had arisen. In fairness to him, he listened with concentration, never as much as interrupting. She even started using the opportunity of the force bond opening when she wasn’t entirely alone, mumbling to him in the corner of the workshop. That had led to some close calls, and one memorable time when she’d had to hold a two minute conversation with a passing engineer while Ben looked on until he _finally_ disappeared.

On the whole, though, it was progress.

Sometimes when the nights had been long and bad she barely spoke while working, not even to Ben, other times she and Rose talked of the state of the war and how the others were doing. Sometimes, more rarely, they spoke of their old life. Rose was more willing to, pouring out her memories of her sister Paige, childhood stories and her upbringing on Hays Minor. Those were the stories Rey loved to hear, especially the ones with Paige and Rose doing something together, playing together, fighting together, crying together… Every interaction was something to be treasured. When Rose spoke of their escape, or how they’d ended up in the Resistance’s lap, or Paige’s affinity for flying and Rose’s talent for mechanics, how she’d gotten them this far with her last-minute repairs and fiddling with tricky radio signals, jamming communication measures and so on and so on… It was like Rey was being entrusted with a treasure that she could barely believe herself worthy of.

When it was Rey’s turn, she was far more likely to clam up. She didn’t have a lot of interesting stories. And most of them were just depressing.

“Must have been lonely,” said Rose quietly.

“It wasn’t too bad.”

She saw Rose’s look of scepticism. “Did you have anybody?”

Rey shrugged, thinking of the endless dunes and the ruins she climbed and Unkar Plutt looking down at her and her dreams… “Not really.”

“I’m sorry.”

Rey nodded and changed the subject, determined to find out every childhood anecdote Rose had to offer.

And even now, that bizarre bond that spanned half a galaxy often felt like the only thing keeping loneliness at bay. In spite of herself, Rey was very nearly beginning to look forward to those chats with Ben.

Even when he was being infuriating.

Ben bent down and plucked one of the Jedi texts from where it leaned against a knee and she could feel the weight of his hair shift the air around her. He straightened, the book resting in the palm of a hand barely smaller than it.

Rey pressed her lips together in irritation. “Stop _doing_ that!”

“Were these on Ach-To?”

“None of your business.”

He turned to her to raise his eyebrows. “Did Skywalker allow you to take these?”

She scowled at him. “I said that’s none of your business!”

“Oh, I heard you,” said Ben, doing that thing where his voice dropped halfway through and became something different entirely, where she couldn’t stop herself from shivering. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice, flipping through the pages with a slight frown. “Have you found anything on lightsaber reconstruction yet here?”

“Not a list of instructions, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t.”

She pursed her lips. “There’s the occasional mention. But mostly there’s more about _making_ lightsabers than repairing them.”

“What about using the Force to heal?”

Rey hesitated. “But that’s different. I’m not trying to heal a living being -”

“The crystals are alive. It’s the first thing you should keep in mind.” He flipped another few pages and shrugged.”That’d be my advice, anyway. This is really interesting.”

“What?”

“There’s a mention here of an old temple that exists outside of the universe. All the normal laws like gravity and time and the way particles fit together no longer apply. Jedi would sit outside it for days, trying to reach inside it with the Force - for none could enter without destroying themselves.”

Rey raised her eyebrows. “Is that relevant?”

Ben looked up, seeming almost embarrassed. “Just interesting. How fast are you getting through these? I imagine reading some of this must be hard without the proper training.”

“I manage,” said Rey, trying for haughty but mostly sounding peeved. Oh, what did she care. “A friend is helping me with the translations,” she admitted.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “The stormtrooper?”

“None of your business,” Rey snapped. “Also, his name is Finn. And no. A different friend. I can have more than one.”

“Lucky you.”

He was trying to sound sardonic but he mostly just sounded sad.

It was strange, working with both Ben and Rose in parallel, Ben only vaguely aware of Rose’s existence and Rose entirely oblivious to Ben. Between the three of them, they figured out how to restore the hilt to its former glory. Rey started meditating more again, going off Ben’s advice about healing. Again, the texts were frustratingly low on specifics, but she suspected he might be onto something. Maybe they really had to treat the crystal like it was alive.

“I wish they grew more of the damn things,” said Rey. “Then we could just replace it and move on.”

“Do you know where you’d find one?” asked Rose.

“Still researching that.”

Or Ben had, mostly. He said he’d had to go on a training mission of his own, to build _his_ lightsaber. He said Skywalker had taken him to a cave somewhere, even though he didn’t remember where. They had tried looking through the texts, Ben frowning over sentence fragments that didn’t quite translate back into modern tongues as she began just scrolling from map to map, hoping one of them might actually be useful. It was around then she began sleeping with the damn things, sometimes having accidentally having them propped on her nose so that pages fell on both sides of her face and she was breathing in musty books all night.

“I feel like many of these star maps are showing many systems that don’t even _exist_ ,” said Rey irritably. “Are you sure you haven’t been blowing any more up while we were looking the other way?”

Ben gave her a look.

“Just checking,” she muttered.

“You won’t find anything like that,” said Ben. “I think the healing idea is our best avenue. I’ll continue to search for the crystal cave but… they’re unlikely to be in the texts. I’ve sent out squadrons in search for them.”

“That’s encouraging,” Rey said. “Love to have the First Order scouring for lightsaber crystals.”

“And do _what_ , exactly?” Ben pointed out huffily. “I’m trying to _help_ you.”

She had nothing to say to that, really - except that this was obviously insane and she wasn’t sure what either of them were doing.

“If only the force bonds lasted longer,” said Ben, running a finger over the text he was currently reading. “It’s so hard to read enough in the time. And they’re not often enough either.”

Rey was very glad he wasn’t looking at her right now. “Don’t you have a job?” she said, trying to get her expression back under control.

“Hm,” was the only thing Ben said to that.

Funny, really. They were fixing the lightsaber they had broken together, which _was_ important, in its own way. But Rey suspected they were both using it to ignore everything else in their lives now.

* * *

It was odd, how quickly they became familiar with each other. How easily they got used to the other’s presence. Their bond became something natural, something easy to control when they weren’t actively trying to keep it at bay. It made it easier to talk when she was actually alone, letting the bond extend later into the night, Ben adjusting to her schedule more than she did to his. She often lay on her bed these days talking to him, weary from long days of work, and she suspected that Ben was speaking from his quarters too.

Rey groaned as she flopped on her back, holding the page close to her face and squinting at them. A painful twinge ran through her back, probably from having pulled something during training. “We’ve figured out how to put together everything else,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. “It’s just the damn crystal. I hate it.”

Ben was pacing. He was starting to do that more during their little talks, which had made her pick up the habit of clearing space for him wherever she was staying after one memorable time he had tripped over half an engine she had been rewiring and had almost fallen flat on his face. If he ran into any walls he was corporeal enough to interact with, that was hardly her fault. “There are ways… the crystals are living things. The Force flows through all life and… legends speak to its ability to heal. Revive.”

“Okay, but _how_?” Rey shook the book as if she could get the relevant knowledge to fall on her face. “They’re always vague on the details.”

“That’s Jedi for you.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “You’re not helping.”

“I think,” Ben started. “I think it may be… a matter of finding the right place.”

“Huh,” said Rey, even though she had no clue what he meant. “Guess it’s time to look at more maps.”

* * *

There were days when she just tried to get away from every breathing thing in whatever hellhole they were hiding in, when she didn’t want to talk to anyone, even doing her best to cut herself off from Ben. Given the hideouts of the Resistance tended towards the inglorious and even the sole Jedi could only get so many allowances, this led to a variety of undignified places she ended up crawling for some respite. One time she had hidden under a big pipe half the day, hearing the sloshing of water and closing her eyes like she still had to dream of oceans, something comforting in the memory of illusions. For hours, it was all she had heard, except for half-sentences that filtered through from Ben’s end in the utter silence. _Prepare for the attack of_ \- then nothing. Not much of a spy she was. It had struck her how cold his voice sounded then, how it was as bad as on Starkiller Base. And even then, he had seemed to soften immediately, when he spoke to her. This was something else, something reserved not for his conversations with her. She thought about him a lot in the hours she stole, and that day had been no exception. She tried to stop herself, but…

When Rey had emerged from underneath the pipe, it was to a stern talking-to. She had gone missing, they had said. They had been worried. It wasn’t protocol. She couldn’t just wander off like that. She was a part of the Resistance and that came with responsibilities, duties…

 _Don’t be selfish_ , some part of her whispered. Of course the last Jedi needed to keep her act together. She couldn’t just do what she wanted. Otherwise, she certainly wouldn’t be there, scrambling for a place in this strange organisation that remained so foreign to her. Otherwise, she would…

* * *

Rey slapped the Jedi text shut. “Maybe we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way.”

Ben, startled, looked up from the text he was consulting, gaze moving first from the text she’d shut then up to her face. One day she might get used to those intense looks. “How do you mean?”

“What if we can’t heal the crystal?”

His brow creased a little, pausing to try to understand what she was getting at. “You want to try to find out where you can get another crystal? There’s not been much progress -”

“No,” said Rey, cutting him off. “I’d _like_ to try to fix this one. First, anyway. But I was thinking…” She frowned, aware of him carefully listening. “Could you make something that connects the two pieces? A… a conductor that connects the two parts, allowing the energy and heat to flow through them as normal.”

Ben’s lips moved, silently repeating her words, and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from them. It was only when he spoke again that she got herself to re-focus. “I’ve not come across that before. I think the usual assumption is that the crystal has to be whole to have the power it needs.”

“Well, with a good enough conductor, it would be. It’s like humans getting droid implants, really. Sometimes it makes them better.”

Ben’s lips twitched. “Good point. It’s not a bad idea. If you want to try that path, I can think of three issues.”

Rey blinked, taken aback by the praise as well as Ben having come up with _three_ issues with the half-formed idea she’d come up with a minute ago. “And those are?”

“The first is what your conductor would be. There’s a reason Jedi use kyber crystals - they have unique properties as conduits for the power they hold that make even _channeling_ that much energy a tricky task.” He gestured at his own lightsaber in way of demonstration. “Off the top of my head, I’d suggest we look to other melee weapons that work with some form of energy blade - they’ve become popular among First Order ranks and I think one of those filaments could be refined and strengthened for your purposes. Of course, unlike with a typical lightsaber there is the danger that they’d get worn out or burnt through, a possible suggestion for that is to not have the conductor connecting the two half-crystals all the time, only occasionally for the connection to recharge and be reforged, if you will. In theory the two halves should be able to operate fairly independently for some amount of time. The second issue is you’d have to change the design of the lightsaber. We’ve been operating under the assumption that we’re putting it together the way it was: obviously, if we have some kind of conductor, the hilt dimensions and so on would have to change. I’d put some thought into how to redesign the hilt, it would have to be longer which could make it unwieldy but you might have…” - he briefly paused, as if on the verge of suggesting something - “other ideas. The raw materials for that shouldn’t be too hard to get, but of course questions of construction become more central with a new design. The third issue is the initial reforging of the connection between the two halves as well as the pieces that have splintered off would _still_ require some form of healing. I think what you said about healing rituals and places potent in the Force might be your best bet, because you’d require less than a complete healing. More of a transformation, to rekindle that spark of life.” He had said most of this very fast but now halted, abruptly cutting himself off, gaze skipping to and away from her with nervous energy as she did her best to wipe the enraptured look of her face. “That’s all,” he said quietly.

 _That’s all_? Rey very nearly laughed but knew that wouldn’t come across well. Better to try and focus on what he had actually said rather than… how much he’d said. “So I’d be asking the Force for a quick favour.”

He shrugged, awkward as if he’d said too much, didn’t add anything else.

It was hard to know what _she_ should say. Mainly trying to figure out a way to let him know how impressed she was without him finding out how impressed she was, which - Well. “I don’t know a lot about the melee weapons the First Order uses.”

“I could research that part,’ said Ben, trying a little too hard to restrain his eagerness. Then added - “If you want.”

“That would be… very helpful. And for the other stuff, I could - um. Could you write all that down? It was… a lot.” She gestured at her datapad with all that sensitive Resistance information on it.

“Right,” said Ben, reaching for it before pausing in mid-motion. “Does that mean you want to try?”

Rey hesitated. “Maybe I should check with Leia first. It was her brother’s lightsaber and I’d be completely changing it.”

At that, Ben’s expression shuttered off. “Why?” he asked in a tone that sounded like he wanted to start a fight. “It’s not his.”

“It _was_ -”

“It was my grandfather’s. He built it. Luke Skywalker just had it for a while.”

Rey wished she could back out of this conversation, really not in the mood for another round of the family dramatics. “Okay, so it’s Leia’s father’s lightsaber. Same difference.”

“Is it? Because she lied to me about him for years.”

“About what?”

“About him being Darth Vader!”

Yeah, Rey vaguely remembered being told about this. It made sense that it’d be something Leia wanted to keep quiet. Rey probably would too, if she were related to someone like that. “Either way, it’s her family.”

“And not mine?”

“I don’t know! It doesn’t seem you want them to be!”

“How would _you_ know?”

“Maybe how you keep trying to kill them? And are sometimes successful!”

The words rushed out and Rey immediately regretted them. And sure enough, there was hurt in Ben’s eyes even as his expression darkened. “I don’t lie about where I’m from.”

And the words kept spilling out, as if it were to late to go back now. “You deny it to yourself. You pretended for so long you don’t care about your parents.”

“Not to you,” he said and his eyes kept her hostage once more. They held each other’s gazes for a long moment in utter silence, their usual silent battle.

“ _Let the past die_ ,” she hissed. “ _Kill it if you have to_. That’s a lie. You _can’t_ let it die. You can’t even let it go.”

He took a half-step back, as if she’d physically struck him. “I can kill it,” he said with an edge of desperation. “Once they’re gone I’ll be free.”

“Another lie,” she said. “Has there been a single day you haven’t thought of Han’s face?”

A sharp intake of breath from him even as the fear and regret swirled through her, crystallising into something akin to terror. What were they doing? They had figured out a way to talk, to find something in each other even as they remained on opposite sides of the war. But the moment truth was brought into the equation and they spoke of everything that had passed between them and around them, it all threatened to break apart, fall away from her as just another lie she wanted to cling on to. She barely even knew where her words came from, but also knew that they’d been dancing beneath the surface for so long, the whispers of her last thoughts every night between sleep - which Ben invariably dominated -as well as the unspoken half-baked ruminations of every conversation they had. Jabs were one thing. This was making him acknowledge things she knew he didn’t want to. And what he could do to her in turn…

“Do any of them know about our bond?” he asked quietly.

How easy it was, how simple for him to bring up her most blatant deception, which he hadn’t even needed to for so long. For all he knew, she _could_ have told someone since then.

By the expression on her face it was probably fairly obvious she hadn’t.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Lie,” he breathed and she very nearly stepped back in turn. Had the force bond ever held this long, she suddenly wondered. Perhaps it wanted to prolong their misery.

“I haven’t gotten around to telling them,” she said, barely able to get through the sentence without her mind informing her of how _weak_ , how _pathetic_ that excuse was. “We’re busy being chased by your crew of monsters.”

“A minor detail like the connection your mind has with the Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

She hated that title. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Why hide it then?”

“I’m not ashamed.”

“I didn’t say you were. You just can’t tell them because you would have to acknowledge that this is real.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not an idiot, I _know_ this is real. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Not our talks. This bond. It’s not just something you can shut on and off however you please, cordoned off from the rest of your life. That’s how you’d like it, isn’t it? All neat and separate from your life?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

Rey tried but couldn’t quite bring herself to, instead seething in silence.

Ben straightened slightly, having won his victory. “We’ve strayed off-topic,” he said, painfully casual. “You don’t have to inform Organa about your intentions for the weapon and you certainly don’t have to ask her permission. It’s not hers or her brother’s or Vader’s or any of that benighted family’s. It’s _yours_. It called to _you_. The decision what to do with it rests with you and you alone.”

She met his gaze again, trying to recover quickly from the exchange. “It called to you too. In the throne room.”

“For an instant,” he said blandly. “It let me borrow it, no more. I won’t delude myself any longer of being worthy of my family’s heirlooms.”

And with that, the connection snapped out. Harsher than usual like it’d been given some help from one end. It was the closest they’d gotten to Rey slamming the door shut on Crait and it didn’t feel any better this time.

* * *

Rey moved among the tents, all belonging to those running from a recent skirmish with the First Order. If the Resistance hadn't gotten there in time they might well have all died, but at least they had managed to protect them. Just about. There weren’t many happy faces in sight.

She sighed as she found her tent, happy to hide in it for the rest of the day. It had been a long night and long morning and she felt drained, physically and emotionally spent. Which of course meant that Ben showed up almost immediately.

At least that meant she could give him a piece of her mind.

“You have no idea what I’ve seen today, what these people have been through,” she snapped. “Your tactics might leave fewer dead than Snoke did. But that doesn’t mean there are no victims.”

“Where are you?” asked Ben.

Every word she said would make it easier for him to find out. “What would you do if you found out? Bomb the shelter to oblivion?”

He didn’t answer.

She hesitated. Then - “You can feel what it’s like,” she said, tentatively reaching out with the Force. And with her hand, just a little, like that one time. Now she was far more practiced at meditation. And she had had to open herself to… to all of it. Everything around her.

He didn’t understand her immediately, even when she gestured around.

“Please. Let me show you.”

“I’m more practiced at meditation than you are,” he said, seeming to grasp her meaning.

“Yeah. But you’ve stopped letting it in. All of it.”

“That’s not true.

“You’re shutting yourself off from everything because you worry the Light will find a way in.”

Ben frowned at her. “What do you think this would accomplish?”

“Just… trust me.”

His frown deepened, but he did as she said anyway. And for the first time since the hut, he brought his fingers to hers, the tips touching.

“Reach out,” whispered Rey, who had needed to let all of these people in all night and all day. Who had run around and found out every concern and fear out there. “Breathe.” And then -

“I’m afraid too.”

Her breathing slowed, and as all sound stilled around them she could hear Ben’s breathing too, with her eyes closed becoming hyper-attuned to the sound as it melded into her own. In and out. In and out. In and out.

It was all there, surrounding her. The bubbling feeling of laughter along with the crushing sobs, a child playing, a child clenched up in pain over a wound, the cloying masses of unwashed bodies and those sat hunched up in a corner, as far away from it all as they could possibly be. The palm trees waving over them, the wind brushing against the tents, people displacing the soil as they ran from one place to the other, the sounds they made joining the hum of machinery and the nature around them. It flowed in and out of Rey with every breath, with each of Ben’s breaths that accompanied her.

The horror and the love, the life and the death. All here in one place.

In and out. In and out.

They parted.

Rey opened her eyes to look at Ben. Just as she did, his eyes flew wide open, wet and afraid, and she wants to reach out to comfort him, to take his hand and touch his hair and _feel_ that connectedness -

But she couldn’t.

* * *

“You’re doing all right?” asked Finn.

“Yeah,” she said, thinking how she was actually doing _better_ than she had for a while now. And than she had most of her life.

“I know I haven’t been around a lot… Missions and all…”

Rey nodded, spinning around with the staff and slapping it firmly against the target. She repeated the motion twice before looking up at Finn, realising he was waiting for her to say something.

“Traditionally,” said Finn, “this is where people go _that’s fine_ or _don’t worry about it_ or even crack a dumb joke.”

“That’s fine?”

“Uh huh.” He obviously wanted to say something and Rey was too tired to wait.

“What is it?”

“Just… If there’s anything bothering you, you know you can talk to me.”

“Like what?”

“Um…”

“Finn. Just tell me.”

“One of the mechanics said they were going to fetch you in the workshop and you were… um… talking to yourself. I know it sounds dumb, but -”

Rey’s heart started racing, fairly sure she could guess which mechanic had noticed her. She couldn’t help it, she had been in deep conversation with Ben at the time and hadn’t been that alert…

She did some very quick thinking.

“Oh,” she said, pulling a face. “I guess old habits die hard.”

Finn furrowed his brow. “Sorry?”

“I’m used to being alone most of the day,” she said. “On Jakku. So… it’s normal, just talking. A lot of the time it’s the only voice you’ll hear all day.” She frowned. “Sorry.”

“No,” said Finn immediately, looking way too embarrassed and guilty for her liking, “I’m really sorry. I should’ve known. It’s just… I get worried and -”

“I hope I’m not making anyone uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry about it. Seriously.” He frowned. “People shouldn’t snoop anyway. What you do, it’s - it’s just your business. If anyone bothers you, send them right to me.”

Rey nodded. “Enough about me. How about you? I feel like I’m seeing less and less of you, you’re always off on some secret mission or other…”

“It’s not that spectacular,” said Finn. “I’m working on something, I can’t quite tell you yet but… it could change everything.”

“What?”

“I need to - it’s something I need to figure out.” Finn gave her an excited smile and Rey returned it. “You should hear what happened to one of the pilots last week though.”

“What happened?”

And Finn launched into a colourful story he had heard third-hand and which Rey could not imagine being remotely true. Still, she enjoyed listening to it, enjoyed the normalcy of their familiar conversation.

It was only a little later that it sunk in how she had very much lied to her friend.

* * *

One morning, Rey stared at the staff propped in the corner. The staff they’d recently decided to reinforce so that it could deflect blaster bolts, but still just a staff. Her stare became a frown. She walked over and picked it up, turning it over in her hands. Then looked over at one of the texts lying on the floor. And back again at the staff. Something fell into place.

It was all she could do to wait for the bond to reconnect. She had to talk to Ben. So when he appeared, she immediately blurted - “I could make it into a staff! The lightsaber, into a staff with blades on either ends!”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, I think that’d work.”

Rey, who had been geared up to explain some more, paused at this surprising lack of surprise. “What?”

“If you have to lengthen the hilt, it’s a good way to adjust. Besides, you’ve fought with a staff for years so it might even be better for you than the old design.”

That was _her_ line. “How do you know I fought with a staff?”

The eyebrows went up. “You’re not the only one who gets visions and dreams. Besides, it’s frequently lying around in your room.”

Rey almost got stuck at the bit where he’d said he dreamed about her, but knew she had to concentrate. “Did you think of this already?”

He hesitated. “The thought crossed my mind.”

“Then why didn’t you want to _say_ anything?”

“I didn’t want to presume…”

“Presume _what_?” She really could strangle him sometimes. “I didn’t even know making a lightsaber into a staff was an _option_. I took _hours_ while waiting around for you to find a two word mention in one of the texts.”

“Oh,” said Ben, eyes widening. Then - “You were waiting for me?”

Rey swallowed. “Yes,” she said, with bluster, “to discuss lightsabers with you.”

“Right.”

“Because I’d come up with something I _thought_ you - why wouldn’t you mention it?”

“I didn’t consider you wouldn’t already know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to suggest such a radical… alteration. We did get taught about the design but… it shouldn’t come from me.”

 _Why the kriff not?_ “How would I know that’s something you can do? I didn’t have your fancy Jedi education. You could pass down those handy teachings.”

He was back to being bemused. “I thought you didn’t want a teacher.” He paused. “Or just not me.”

She was tempted to point out they’d been fighting to the death at the time of the offer. “I haven’t had the best of experiences,” she muttered. “Anyway. This is more of a - a -”

“Collaboration?”

“Yes. That. So next time mention it and save us the trouble.” She felt a little put-out and couldn’t quite understand why.

Ben could. “It was your idea to keep the crystal in two pieces in the first place. With all my Jedi lessons I don’t think I’d ever have come up with that.”

Rey could tell when she was being mollified and she hated that it was working. “You know, Luke also had an irritating habit of not giving me straight answers to things. I don’t need to _figure things out on my own_ or whatever.”

Ben barely reacted to being compared to his uncle, apart from a twitch of the eyelid. “Jedi teachings tend to stress arriving at answers on your own. Of course they have very specific opinions on what those answers are and they don’t encourage deviations from them.”

She snorted in spite of herself.

* * *

“Right,” said Rey. “Here’s what we’re doing.” She handed Rose her datapad with the notes she and Ben had made on it. “We’re designing a lightsaber staff.”

Rose took the datapad. “Two blades?”

“Uh huh.”

“You can do that?”

Rey nodded and grinned. “I thought of it and then I found a line in a Jedi text and… Rose, this is it, this would make the healing a lot easier because we’d put this thing in between, see - and you’d still have two halves but they’d be fitted in here. See?”

Rose did indeed see, and they went through the design for a few minutes, Rose offering minor corrections or praise for a creative design point.

“So you’re keeping the crystal in two pieces,” said Rose slowly.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not keeping them permanently connected to prevent the conductor from burning out too fast.”

“Uh huh.”

“And you’ve got two half-crystals for two blades.”

Rey nodded, wondering whether there was a point.

Rose frowned at it. “Okay. I’m just…” She squinted at the design. “Hm.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t you detach the two halves of the staff? Even once you’ve built it?”

It took a moment for her words to sink in and to absorb the implications. “Rose, you’re a genius.”

Rey leapt to her feet the next time she saw Ben, quickly rumaging under her pillow before emerging victoriously.

“Conjoined sabers,” she said, slapping down the datapad in front of Ben with a grin. “ _And_ you can detach them. What do you think?”

The look of genuine excitement in Ben’s eyes was one Rey would come to treasure. “I think it’s brilliant.”

* * *

But the peace couldn’t last.

It was Rose who came to break the news to her. Rose, trembling so hard and only just holding back the tears that Rey’s heart instantly did a flip, sure that someone they knew must have died, the thought that it might be _Finn_ ready to bring her to her knees. When Rey found out what was really going on and for a brief moment felt relief, she immediately felt guilty for her relief.

“They killed all of them,” said Rose. “It’s a slaughter. Not anything to do with war… We were barely even there. They started a rebellion because of the _horrible_ conditions they live under, a mining planet, just like - just like -”

Gradually, through Rose’s tear-stained testimony the details emerged. Not a normal war-time act. No, a slaughter. A small mining planet taken over by the First Order not long ago, where a rebellion had started and then…

“We don’t know whether anybody survived. There were _children_ there. Most people weren’t even part of the rebellion, but they’re all dead. So many innocents…” Rose’s voice quivered as Rey listened, feeling numb and dead inside and hearing of the slaughter of thousands of people by the hand of the First Order. Under the leadership of Kylo Ren. All because they didn’t want to starve any more.

As the tears fell down Rose’s face, Rey paused, still unfamiliar with… what to do next. All she knew how to do was to reach out in the most simplistic of ways. Which she did. She held out her hand, laying it on Rose’s back, shuffling closer again as she did so. Rose smiled weakly at her, which helped reassuring Rey that she wasn’t doing something wrong, and lay her head against Rey’s side. It took Rose some time to be able to talk again.

“I don’t even know them,” said Rose, straightening a little. “Any of them. But it’s still…” She shook her head, sitting up and wiping away her tears again with an already slick hand. “Sorry. I’ve - I’ve made everything all wet.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Rey, who couldn’t even imagine anything mattering less.

“It’s just… a lot, sometimes,” said Rose.

“Yeah. I know.”

Rose couldn’t stop crying and Rey pulled her towards her, so that Rose’s head was on her lap and she could cry there, let the tears flow until there was nothing left, as Rey ran a hand through Rose’s hair again and again, no real thoughts in her mind apart from horror and misery. A tear trickled from Rey’s right eye and dropped down on Rose’s head as she thought of the mining planet, the victims, Ben, the First Order and the Resistance, until it all mixed together and she wasn’t even sure any more what she was sad about. They sat there together for a long time, both alternating between crying and staring at nothing, Rey as grateful as she suspected Rose was that they could grieve in silence and peace away from the others, saying goodbye to people they had never known.

* * *

_This was Kylo Ren._

When the bond tried to manifest the next time, she shut it off. The numbness had finally given way to fury. And there was a lot of it. A lot at herself, mainly. Her thoughts kept turning back to where they had been when she was with Rose, realising what exactly she was concealing from all of them. It was followed by a thick wave of shame.

Rey had been willing to let so much slide just because she wanted someone to talk to.

The longer the bond was away, the harder it became to resist. But Rey was becoming pretty good at it. Even though Ben was clearly trying to talk to her.

She saw a flash of him for a second before managing to get rid of it. Then she stormed to Leia’s office.

* * *

“I need to tell you something,” said Rey, having burst in. Thank the Force that Leia was actually here at the moment, not off on another mission.

Leia greeted her with confusion and worry. “Rey, did something happen?”

“No. I mean, yes. But nothing new. I -”

As she searched for the right words, Leia studied her. “How about you explain to me what the problem is?”

Rey took a breath and dove right in. “When I was on Ach-To… something happened. Between Ben and me.”

Leia frowned at her. If she had any reaction to Rey’s use of that name, she didn’t show it. “My son wasn’t there with you, was he?”

“No. That’s it.” Rey pressed her lips together briefly, inhaling through the nose. “When he entered my mind in the interrogation room and I entered his… it changed something. Snoke said it was him but Ben doesn’t think so. Maybe Snoke might’ve encouraged it but I don’t think he created -”

“Rey,” said Leia, cutting through the babbling. Rey had her undivided attention now, for better or for worse, and the general stepped forward to place a light hand on Rey’s forearm. In her mind’s eye, Rey imagined Leia doing something similar to a young Ben, comforting him perhaps. She didn’t know how she felt about that. “I don’t suppose this will be the explanation for how exactly you ended up on the Supremacy when Snoke died and the lightsaber broke?”

Rey felt the heat rise to her cheeks, remembering those early days when she had strung together some half-cooked lines about sneaking in as a distraction and managing to catch Snoke unawares and Kylo being conveniently not around. And in her defence, she couldn’t explain who had actually killed Snoke without the rest of it coming out. Finn and the rest of them had been ready enough to believe her and been greatly impressed by her feats of heroism. Leia, however…

Well, Rey had kind of hoped Leia would have forgotten by now. So much for that.

“Yeah,” she said, too far gone now to keep up the lies.

“Then go ahead,” said Leia. “You can tell me.”

Rey nodded, somewhat encouraged, and continued a little breathlessly. “On Ach-To… something happened between Ben and me. We realised we were connected in the Force. We could see each other and talk to each other, even though he was on Snoke’s ship and I was with Luke. So we talked.”

Leia’s eyes had widened. When Rey paused, waiting for her response, she said - “Go on,” gently encouraging.

“He told me…” Rey took a deep breath. “We talked about Han. And he told me about the night he left Luke.” She hesitated. “Do you know what happened that night?’

Leia slowly shook her head. “Not the details. As I understand it, Ben attacked Luke, burnt down the Jedi temple and ran.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Well. I _know_ he didn’t attack Luke and I’m not convinced about the other stuff either.”

“You know?” asked Leia with a raise of the eyebrows.

“Between what Ben and Luke told me… Your brother, initially he told me something like that. But then Ben said _Luke_ had attacked _him_ when he was sleeping and…” Rey briefly closed her eyes, realising how far she had strayed into this messy family’s drama. She opened them again to look at Leia, summoning her courage once more. “And then Luke told me that he’d looked into Ben’s mind, had seen what Snoke had done… He drew his lightsaber on Ben. It was just for a moment… but Ben woke up and he saw Luke standing over him with a lightsaber. And… he defended himself.” She pressed her lips together tightly.

Leia had paled at her words and almost swayed, now steadying herself with the hand that still rested on Rey. There was a long moment of silence. Then Leia met Rey’s gaze, her eyes flinty and her composure back in place, reminding Rey of why this was a woman not to be taken lightly. “Please. Continue.”

“We realised we had a connection,” said Rey. “Not just through the Force. But… through the bond, we touched hands. I saw his future, it felt so clear… I knew I could turn him if I went to him, I was _convinced_ …” She swallowed, brow furrowing. “Luke wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t come. I thought Ben was the only hope we had left. So I went to him.”

“That’s why you went to the Supremacy.”

“Yeah. I know… I know it was stupid. But I just _knew_ …”

Leia smiled faintly at her. “My brother frequently made choices I believed to be incredibly stupid too. But sometimes the Force wills things in to being and we can’t know why. I’m sure you made the right choice.”

“I thought I had,” said Rey. “He took me to Snoke, on the way we spoke… I told him what I’d seen. And when we got to Snoke… Ben killed him.” She ignored Leia’s surprise and pressed on. “We fought the guards together. I thought he was going to turn. But then he… he decided to become supreme leader. He said we could change the galaxy with the First Order. So I called to the lightsaber and he did so at the same time and then… we broke it.”

“And since then?”

“The bond’s still there and we’ve still talked. He’s… he’s been helping me. With the lightsaber.”

What followed was a long silence as Rey steeled herself for the inevitable condemnation. Eventually, she couldn’t wait any longer and the words burst from her mouth.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you all this before,” said Rey, looking down. “He’s your son and he’s the enemy and…” She trailed off.

“Yes, you should have,” said Leia, but the admonishment was a gentle one. “Why did you decide to come to me now?”

“The mining planet, it’s… I had so much hope, I _wanted_ to believe. But now, after everything he’s done…” She was struggling not to get choked up. “I’ve heard about all of it, and it’s just more innocents being slaughtered on his watch. I keep trying and trying and I’ve been an _idiot_.” She took a deep breath with difficulty. “I was an idiot.”

Leia was silent for a moment. “It’s your choice how to proceed,” she said eventually. “But if you want me to condemn me for continuing to reach out to my son, I won’t. Every day, I wish I could do so myself. Every day, I wish I had done so far, far earlier.”

This really wasn’t what Rey had expected to hear and she started in surprise. “But -”

“The path of the Jedi isn’t an easy one,” said Leia. “I know how much it always burdened Luke and I know I couldn’t always understand the choices he made. But I also know I admired him for his compassion, just as I admire you for yours.” She squeezed Rey’s arm. “Rey, I don’t want to place my family’s burden on you. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, least of all my son. Of course, you cannot entirely escape it yourself, now… But you have the advantage, the wonderful privilege of having no designated place in this story. Which means you can choose. If you decide you can no longer stand by my son, I understand that entirely. If you wish to continue to reach out for him, there too you have my full support.”

“You’re the leader of the Resistance,” said Rey, her brow furrowed. “He’s done so _much_.”

“And yet you’ve rightly seen the Light that is still within him.”

Rey nodded. “I just wish it weren’t… so hard.”

“A lot of my son’s flaws are my own,” Leia said with a sad half-smile. “We are both too quick to anger and too stubborn by far. Perhaps that’s why I was so afraid of what he could become.” She sighed. “In truth, I wish he had never been trained at all. Han knew it far better than I did, but even I understood how lonely the path a Jedi walks is. But I felt I had no choice, that with a power such as his, he needed to find a way to control it or sink under. Every day I wish I had done things differently. Yet when the time came, I sent you to Luke too…”

“That was my choice.”

“I didn’t stop you. It helps, I think, that you were searching for something. My son would have preferred to run. Maybe he could have done so.” Leia sighed once more. “Forgive me. I feel myself increasingly weighed down by regrets these days… It is not always helpful. And it isn’t what you need to hear, or your burden. You’ve come to realise so quickly how complicated things are. They will forever defy easy solutions. But I have faith in your choices.”

It took Rey a lot of effort to not start crying.

* * *

That night, she had horrible dreams. Jakku had been the last thing on her mind before she went to sleep and naturally, it haunted her dreams too.

_Dream of an ocean dream of an ocean dream of an ocean dream of an -_

She didn’t see him in her dreams. Only endless sand, sinking in. A life where she’d never left. But then she did and she flew off and -

\- and Unkar found her, and he found her and he dragged her back. She didn’t have the Force to free her, it didn’t answer to her.

 _It was never yours_ , said Luke in her dream. _The Force isn’t something you possess, it’s something_ -

That would eventually abandon her. Like everything.

And everyone.

* * *

It was a day of depressing reports and hushed whispers. Rose looked a little better but had thrown herself headfirst into her work with a ferocity that took even Rey aback. Finn was yet to return from a mission, even though Poe had assured her that he was safe.

She felt the tug of the bond repeatedly, but she let him wait. It wasn’t like she was ever alone enough to talk to him. Even a brief separation had made a hunger return to the force bond, one that unnerved and exhilarated her at once. It didn’t make it easier to keep Ben out.

That evening, she finally didn’t.

When Ben saw Rey, he immediately sprung up from his seat, the words pouring out of his mouth when presented with the opportunity to finally be expressed. “Rey, I didn’t order them to. You need to believe me.”

Rey looked back at him coldly. “Is that the best you can do?”

“It was senseless violence. It isn’t what I believe in. I never would have allowed it.”

“You _lead_ them!”

“I don’t know what happened. I’m still trying to find out.” His brow quivered as he leaned forward, one hand reaching out a little but not getting far. She didn’t yield an inch. “This isn’t how I want to do things.”

She took a second look at him, realising how pale and gaunt he looked, dark shadows under eyes that looked watery as well as blood-shot and bizarrely messy hair that stuck to a slick face. He’d looked rough a few times during their chats, but he almost looked worse than when he’d been on the Supremacy during their first conversations. Back then, at least, he’d put a concerted effort into putting up appearances. What was he doing now?

“That’s what happens when you’re on their side. This will always happen.”

“It’s not,” said Ben, shaking his head. “It’s not.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “You can’t be this deluded! You’ve _seen_ what happens - we both have. Any lie you tell yourself about how you can make the First Order into something better than what it was… Surely, now…” She paused, as if hoping for the realisation to dawn in his face, as if waiting for him to _finally_ understand.

Ben didn’t look like he understood, but he also didn’t look like he had the energy to argue. He just looked tired. Like his leadership was gradually sucking the life from him. It probably was. It probably would.

“Just stop,” said Rey, feeling her head tilt to one side in shear weariness. “Can’t you just stop? Just leave.”

“I can’t,” said Ben quietly.

She closed her eyes for a moment. It was too much, doing this again and again and again. When she opened them again, Ben was in the process of hastily dabbing at his eyes. She just wanted to hug him, wanted to feel his face and hair and lips and… and wanted him to come to her. Not this. It was breaking her, seeing him like this. Seeing him this broken.

“What’s your plan?” asked Rey quietly, an edge of fury in her voice. “How do you see all this turning out? You rule for a bit, then eventually _someone_ gets lucky and the First Order crumbles. You know I won’t ever give in, so eventually you’ll have to kill me. Maybe I’ll beat you, maybe a new Force-user will rise to do so. One day, it’ll happen. Or maybe you’ll grow old and die a natural death, as a very successful Supreme Leader of the galaxy. Congratulations. Is that what you want?

He didn’t answer.

“There’s another way.”

“I can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve done too much. Those ties… they’re burnt.”

“I know that isn’t true. I’ll help you.”

He didn’t answer.

“You want to rule the galaxy? Because you’re not doing a whole lot of ruling.”

Silence.

“You haven’t even asked me whether I want to join you again. You can’t seriously pretend like you want that. Whatever it is that’s stopping you, just tell me. I’ll help you.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“I know,” said Rey. “But… If you don’t turn… then it’ll have to happen sooner or later. I kill you. Or you kill me. Which one do you want?”

Ben’s self-control slipped even further, lip quivering and an anguished pain setting his features briefly into motion. Then it all subsided again, and he looked at her with only a weary melancholy. “Which would _you_ prefer?”

Rey was about to answer, then hesitated, unable to. “I don’t want either,” she said, voice almost a whisper.

“What do you want?” he asked, almost as quietly.

“I want you here with me. To be with you.”

The melancholy was gone, replaced by an undeniable shock. Like he hadn’t _known_ that she…

The connection faded. And Rey knew that this was going to be what she did, whatever happened. She was going to keep trying. And she wouldn’t stop reaching out.

* * *

The next time they spoke, Ben had made an effort to clean himself up and look a little more composed. He started off with what felt like a prepared speech.

“The First Order’s retreated from that system. We’ve sent aid to the planet. And punished those responsible for an order. I want to send a message… that this isn’t how we’re going to do things. And I’ll make clear that people understand the consequences of disobeying.”

“Great,” said Rey, voice hollow. “More violence. Good job.”

“It’s still a war,” said Ben evenly. “But we intend to fight it as a legitimate force. Not monsters, whatever your Resistance may think.”

“The First Order wiped out an entire planetary system,” said Rey with a sigh. Kriff, she didn’t even have the energy to argue any more. “You can’t erase that. The taint will always be with you.”

“That wasn’t when I was in charge,” said Ben. “I didn’t want it. It’s not like that any more.”

“ _Any_ benefit of the doubt _anyone_ might’ve given you is _gone_ ,” said Rey emphatically. “You’re the Supreme Leader now. Everything they do is your responsibility. Everything.”

“I understand that,” said Ben, still trying to be tough while Rey was just about ready to fall apart. “I am taking responsibility. This was a tragic mistake, but the First Order under my leadership will be committed to -”

She cut him off with a groan. “Save it for the bureaucrats,” she muttered. “It’s all tosh. And what exactly are your grand new order’s plans for the Resistance, if you manage to defeat us?”

Ben hesitated. “Upon a total surrender, we would allow justice to take its course under new laws. It would be fair.” He took a breath. “I wouldn’t kill them, Rey. It’s a peace offer.”

“It’s not a peace offer if you’re not offering peace.” Rey shook her head. “You know this won’t work. You know it won’t work with anyone, let alone me. Why do it?”

“I’m trying.”

“Then try something else. You know you won’t win. Do you even want to?”

“Yes,” he hissed, a bit of anger returning to him as if he’d rediscovered his fighting spirit at her provocations. “I _will_ win.”

“No,” said Rey. “I don’t get it. You know someone will rebel within the ranks or the Resistance will do something or I’ll get lucky. You continue along this path. And then you die.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Or I die. And your mum dies and the whole Resistance. Or maybe just you. Is that it? Is that how you see it ending?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Death solves nothing,” she said harshly. “I thought you would have realised that when you killed your dad.”

Ben’s eyes filled with pain and heartbreak. It was always so easy to see.

“You told me you didn’t hate him. And you don’t hate your mother. And you don’t hate me.” She stepped towards him. “So what happens to us?”

“You know the Resistance can’t win.”

“Neither can you.”

“I know.”

And the force bond, always with a flare for the dramatic, receded once more.

* * *

Rey could shut it all down now. Draw the line here. Move on beyond him.

The thought made her stomach flip and she knew, however much she had avoided saying as much to Leia, she wasn’t keeping open this bond just for Ben’s sake.

And so they continued on, trying desperately to pretend like things hadn’t almost broken, like they didn’t both know full well where the other stood.

 _“One flows into all and all into one. What is broken was once not. It can never be undone but made whole once more_ ,” said Rey, reading from the text in her lap. She looked up at Ben. “I think it might be a place of healing. If I go there with the lightsaber…”

He paused, then nodded. “You should try.”

“Now we’ve just got to figure out where this is.”

It was Rose who ended up having the breakthrough on that, identifying an ancient way of denoting coordinates.

“How do you even know that stuff?” asked Rey.

“You’re not the only one who’s had to scavenge _very_ old stuff. I don’t know the cartographical system myself but I know enough to know what we’re dealing with. And then, when it’s been sent to the right people…”

Rey grinned. “We have a place to go.”

* * *

And then, things changed again.

“I heard you’re leaving,” said Rey.

Leia nodded and smiled gently at her. “It may be a while before I get to return to the Resistance. It is time to play politics and see whether I can’t rally some of my old friends to my side.”

“Won’t he know where you’re going? Your friends, wouldn’t he know them?”

“Some,” said Leia. “But he was with Luke a long time. And my acquaintances have become good at hiding.” She inclined her head a little. “Of course, if he does his research and decides to go hunting… He’s a smart boy. Who knows how much he could find out. But I can’t do anything about that. I have to trust.” She gave Rey one of her meaningful looks, and Rey really wished she’d gotten to talk more to her during the past weeks. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, of course - just the endless slog of war that kept everyone busy. But Leia… Leia had understood the first time they met what she was and she had always been kind and… and in Rey’s most lonely nights she sometimes had to admit to herself that she wished she had had a mother like that. Or any mother.

“We’ll miss you,” said Rey, smiling back. Calm and collected, like she should be.

Leia pulled her in for a hug. “Don’t let my son give you too much grief,” she whispered in Rey’s ear. And Rey understood that there were many things left unsaid, burdens Leia didn’t feel like she could put on Rey. _Bring him home. Don’t give up on him_.

If only he were here.

* * *

Rey hadn’t seen Leia much since joining the Resistance full-time, so in a sense it didn’t make much of a difference whether she was going to be gone for a longer time. It felt different, though. It was a change. And right now, even though they were scurrying through the galaxy and in truth _everything_ was uncertain… she just didn’t want any more changes.

Plus the fear that Leia would never come back.

“I’m so alone,” murmured Rey into thin air as she got ready for bed that night. The first time she’d admitted it out loud, and no one was here to hear, here to care. All she had was mechanical jobs they didn’t want her to do and a lightsaber she couldn’t fix.

Which was a dumb thought, of course. They were actually making progress now with the lightsaber. It wasn’t hopeless any more.

And then what? What if they actually fixed it? What happened when she lost her best excuse to talk to Ben?

“Go to sleep,” she muttered to herself. There was enough time for dumb, pointless thoughts in the morning. Besides, it wasn’t like the force bond was going to stop any time soon.

* * *

“So this is the design,” said Rey.

“Are you happy with it?”

She nodded, feeling a hint of elation as she stared down at the datapad and all their careful plans, the way the hilt’s pieces had been rearranged to form the beginnings of two hilts, their design for the extension of both and the twisting mechanism to detach the part in the middle, through which they’d make the filament run. Rose had jumped on the suggestion of using a First Order melee weapon as a base design and Rey had to awkwardly pretend like she’d been the one to come up with the idea. When Ben had seen the design Rose had come up with and the modifications she’d suggested, he hadn’t been able to hide how impressed he was, which made Rey daydream of a kinder world where she could introduce the two of them. A world where they weren’t on opposite sides of the war.

It wasn’t long before all the hilt pieces arrived, leaving to a long evening in the workshop - first with Rose and then, when Rose had to leave, alone. Then the connection opened and she couldn’t help but smile when Ben had appeared. As they sat together, determined to stretch out the force bond as long as they possibly could, putting the final pieces together.

She didn’t even notice when Ben was gone for a minute or two, probably because she could still feel the force bond’s presence.

“Here,” said Ben.

She accepted what he was handing her without second thought, then frowned in surprise at the heat spreading across her fingertips. She looked down at a steaming cup of caf, then up at Ben.

He looked away, acting casual. “You’ve been at it for a while,” he said, settling down on a seat on his end of the bond and picking up a cup of his own that to Rey seemed to appear from thin air.

She hesitated, then nodded before looking back over the papers again. A moment later, she brought the cup to her lips, taking a sip and instantly lowering it again when she realised how hot it was. The taste wasn’t too bad though. “If I set it down, will it vanish?”

Ben shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

She did and it didn’t - Rey could feel ever more how the Force surrounded both of them. Even the cup wasn’t safe from the space between them the bond created, the way their realities folded around them, adjusting and readjusting as they shifted positions. Wherever Ben went, he brought something of his surroundings with him, encroaching into her space in the slightest of ways. Scents, sounds and small objects - not the architecture itself, usually not even furniture except glimpses. It was deliberate, wasn’t it? Usually, when they interacted with objects on the other end - except for Ben’s occasional stumbles, that was - they were deliberate acts. It was like all things with this bond, an odd mixture of accident and design.

And then the cup…

She frowned as she turned it over in her hands.

“What?” said Ben, having noticed her ruminations.

“I’m just wondering,” said Rey. “Could I keep this cup?”

A pause. Ben was giving her a non-plussed look. “Is the Resistance in such desperate circumstances that you need to keep the _cup_?”

“I was thinking more as a present,” Rey responded dryly, then saw Ben looking at her like he was genuinely trying to suss out whether she was being serious. “No, stupid. Is it possible for us to pass over things and for them to _stay_ there? Permanently?”

Ben considered this. “Maybe. I still remember one time when it was raining on your end and you made me wet even when the bond closed.” Colour rose to his cheeks. “I mean…” He trailed off, apparently not able to come up with whatever it was he meant.

“Do you think that would work with people?”

He took a moment to shift gears and process the question. “As in transporting them through the force bond?”

“Yeah. Or just us.”

“Considering how much effort even projecting yourself with the Force takes, the effort would in all likelihood be fatal.”

“Okay,” said Rey slowly, “but _we’re_ projecting to each other. And we’re moving objects between the bond. So clearly the normal rules don’t apply to us.”

“Clearly they don’t,” Ben echoed, and he was leaning towards her again. For an instant, she was tempted to do likewise. His eyes were sparkling and his hands twitched in the way they usually did when he was particularly restless, probably because he was having a lot of clever thoughts. “The Force has formed portals before, connections between places separated in space, or to different worlds, or worlds between worlds. If a person’s essence can connect across space and time with another, why couldn’t that essence permanently be transferred? Isn’t this a portal in and of itself, yet without clearly defined physical boundaries? It’s not theoretically impossible, the question is more one of sheer energy required. But as you point out, those rules seem to work differently for this force bond we share. The problem is we have no way of testing -” He broke off, mouth ajar as he stared at her, gaze flicking between her lips and her eyes. A beat later and she started, confused, before realising she’d been smiling fondly at Ben like an idiot.

“That sounds reasonable,” said Rey, gaze dropping. “They teach you all that in Jedi school?”

“Not really,” said Ben. “Skywalker’s interest in the mysteries of the Force had its limits. And it was mostly just him. No _they_ to speak of.”

Rey nodded. The Luke she had met _had_ seemed knowledgable in the Force itself, but she knew it might just seem that way to a novice like her. She sometimes wondered what it would have been like if Luke had found her when she was still a child. How it would’ve been like to grow up with others like her and not be alone.

Except, of course, it hadn’t been like that for Ben.

“Did you ever enjoy it?” she asked quietly. Here they were again, away from safe ground like talking about repairing lightsabers. This was subject matter of a different nature, they both knew it. Too much talk of their past and they might remember who they both were and why they could only talk to each other through the Force.

“There were times,” said Ben, matching her tone. “But the voice was always there, twisting things… and then I couldn’t remember anything but the bad. The worst.”

“Voice?” asked Rey. Then she put two and two together and the answer created a chill at the bottom of her throat. “Snoke.” His twitch was all the answer she needed. “How long?”

“Always, I think.”

Rey shuddered. She had known, of course, that Snoke had turned him, that he had been in Ben’s mind on _some_ level. Still, she hadn’t dwelled on the matter for too long. The thought that Snoke had always… She took a deep breath. “Ben…”

At that moment, a siren sounded from outside.

“Kriff,” said Rey, jumping up immediately. “I need to go.”

Ben barely blinked. “You can keep the cup,” he said quietly, from where he sat.

“What?”

“The cup,” he said, meeting her eyes. “To see if it works.”

In that gaze, the siren momentarily fell away, little more than a background hum. She had to shake herself to get her mind back on track, to force herself to focus once more on the task ahead of her. She nodded. “Let’s try,” she said and with one last look at Ben, started running.

* * *

Rey had to jump into the first ship available and make a beeline for the nearest planet. They’d only told her that Resistance scouts had unexpectedly run into trouble, plus an entire village that was in danger of being caught in the crossfire. Once she had found out what was happening, she had insisted on going. So now it was her, a staff and a blaster, ready to take on the First Order. Well, it was probably them.

Everything was a blur in the mingled excitement and fear, so much so that she barely remembered flying or landing the ship or jumping out or running, knowing even without the help of her comms where she had to go. What she had to do. _We’ll get bombers down there fast enough,_ Poe had yelled over at her. _Just protect the civilians._

Even now, as her heart raced and she had no time to centre herself, to take time to do anything but run, she could feel the Force flurrying around this place, could feel the pain and fear of the hapless citizens. It was all she could do to focus on the orders coming through her comms, to carefully adjust her ready stance with her blaster and make sure that the Force was attuned to _everything_ around her, not just the suffering but also the blaster bolt that could come at her from any direction.

 _Not going to die here_.

Rey advanced into the village with all the speed and confidence she could muster, wielding her staff and blaster. Once she saw the stormtroopers, she saw it was indeed the First Order they were facing and that familiarity helped, oddly enough. She knew where their patrols would be waiting, knew to drop to the ground where she spun her staff and brought down two at once with a swing to the legs, throwing back others with the Force or deflecting their shots back at them.

So she quickly reached the top of the hill at the foot of which most of the village lay, scattered buildings with thatched roofs surrounded by palm trees and half-hidden entrances to the tunnel system beneath the hill. It was chaos down there - smoke and screams, all of it designed to overwhelm her senses and make her task so much harder. She ran to the path that took her to the bottom of the hill and decided to make her presence known.

Rey spun around with a yell and kicked a wagon resting at the to, letting it roll down the hill into a mass of enemy combatants. Well, she had their attention now. Having drawn their fire, she slid behind the nearest rock, allowing her to peak out just long enough to fire down at them, taking advantage of the vantage point. Half a minute later, the other Resistance fighters had gotten their act together and had begun offering up a fierce fight. Rey took her cue to slide down the hill and grab at any civilians scurrying around, frequently screaming, trying to marshal them away from the fighting to the tunnel opening she’d seen below where she had entered the town.

And there they were, the mass of civilians she had sworn to protect. This crowd she prodded with the Force, setting them into motion in the same direction as the strays she had already protected. But this had gotten too _much_ attention and the stormtroopers had decided to take her out first. Which meant they were all coming after her, closing in on the hollow tunnel opening she had brought the civilians towards, with a ship flying closer down undoubtedly armed with plenty of missiles -

And time froze.

In the middle of the battlefield, she found something inside herself. Something that called to her, filled her with understanding and purpose. Not quite the Force. More who _she_ was within that Force. Her place. Her purpose. The choices she had made that had brought her here and what she would do to protect all the civilians she had now unwittingly put a target on.

Rey breathed in, breathed out. Centring herself. Calling to the Force to be with her, only her, just her - standing here and being here and existing here and…

… and time came back and she welcomed it. And as she found herself, she fought back.

Rey spun the staff around, the blaster bolt jumping off the metal casing and rebounding against the ship. All aimed precisely enough to hit a specific target that she knew all too well, knew exactly what imperial design they were cribbing off. She had to move fast enough she must’ve seemed a blur to stop the bolts from hitting the people behind her or herself, with a weapon that was far from being a lightsaber and would eventually be burnt through. Reinforced metal or not.

_Breathe. Just breathe._

But in the end, the staff held. And once enough shots had fired into the delicate engines, the ship hovering up above them dropped to the ground. It caught fire - Rey was pleased with herself from having stopped it from exploding - placed right between them and their enemies. For now, they were safe.

“A Jedi,” came the murmur from behind her and when she had turned, the murmur was spreading through the crowd. _A Jedi. The Jedi._ Rey clasped her staff more tightly, uneasy at the sound and far more interested in getting them away from the fire. There was something about the awe the crowd now considered her with she didn’t like at all.

Yet even as she got them to move away from the fire and into the depth of the tunnels as the Resistance and the First Order fought above, that awe didn’t go away.

* * *

That night, they celebrated. It was too risky to be in the town itself, but they had cleared out the tunnel system enough to sit with the villagers. Someone or other had explained that, while it was still a risk, they couldn’t exactly leave the villagers alone. All signs suggested the First Order squadron that had attacked them had been an isolated one. As far as Rey was concerned, she just had to believe Ben wouldn’t order anyone to fire missiles at a planet she was on. She wondered whether that belief was deeply foolish.

In any case, it was rare for Finn and Rose and Poe to all be around at the same time, and while she might not know Poe as well she certainly could enjoy the camarederie that existed between him and Finn. It was hard to ignore the hushed whispers of anyone who passed them when they looked at Rey, or to ignore her own deep weariness, making her wonder whether she’d overextended herself with the Force.

“You should get some rest,” said Rose, looking at her with concern.

Rey agreed, apologising as she took her leave. The people sitting with her were peeved to be losing the hero of the hour, but then again there was a level of understanding.

All the weird Force stuff. Must be exhausting, right?

They had no idea.

She stepped away and the sound of rejoicing villagers quickly receded, the bright light of the flame with it. The makeshift sleeping area that had been set up was still completely empty, everyone else still too busy revelling in their continued survival. Rey half-smiled, her eyelids getting ever heavier while she idly wished she could still enjoy those things to the same extent. Not so long ago, it would’ve all been very exciting. Now she barely even felt a part of it any more.

Rey had barely lowered herself onto one of the standard regulation blankets when she felt the force bond and… she really really shouldn’t. If Ben figured out through her where they were, they would be completely helpless. But she couldn’t help herself. How much she wanted to see him.

Ben was there, waiting. He listened to her sparse explanation of what had happened, not remarking on all the details she left out. Somewhere along the way, she was pretty sure she had gotten across her confused mess of emotions. The thrill of the fight. The uncertainty she could never get rid of. Yet also, alongside it, a sudden burst of clarity.

“It was like nothing I had ever felt before,” said Rey. “Not power, exactly… But knowing what to do. How to move. I felt… at peace. Even though there was war all around me.”

Ben nodded, showing his understanding.

“I’m afraid, sometimes. It’s so much and no one else can even see it but me. But then there’s moments like today where I feel in control. And… and good. It was something good. I helped them.”

Rey paused. Ben didn’t speak.

“You’re not trying to find out where I am, right?”

“Not right now,” said Ben.

Rey nodded. “You probably could work it out.”

“Probably.”

“Then why don’t you?”

He stayed silent.

“Ben…”

“I still want you to come to me one day.”

“You know I’ll never rule with you.”

“And you’ll never win.”

“Not alone, I won’t.”

She turned over her hand, extending her palm, reaching out just a little. To show him, perhaps, that the offer was still there. He stared at it and back to her eyes.

“You were as good as any Jedi today,” he said.

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “You didn’t even see me.”

“But I know,” he replied. Paused, then added - “So much for needing a lightsaber. It was all you.”

The connection fizzled out.

* * *

“It’s ready,” said Rey, excited to tell Ben the good news. “Except for the crystal, all the pieces are ready. I’ve arranged them all.”

Ben nodded. “Then all that’s left is… the place of healing.”

 _“One flows into all and all into one. What is broken was once not. It can never be undone but made whole once more_ ,” she recited. “I’m still not quite sure what it means. If I’m making it whole again, isn’t that the same as undoing?”

“You’re making something new.”

She nodded, not going to argue the point. “I guess. Do you really think this is the place?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But… I think, either way you’ll manage to do it. You have what you need. The rest is inside you.”

Rey raised her eyebrows. “Why bother going to a cave at all then.”

“It can’t hurt,” he said, a humorous note to his tone she had come to miss.

“Thank you,” said Rey, as earnestly as she could manage. She met Ben’s gaze. “You’ve helped me… so much. And… even with everything…” She swallowed. “It means a lot.”

Ben hesitated, then nodded.

He didn’t offer to meet her and she was happy he didn’t. Because then she’d be reminded that he _knew_ where she was going. And how there was no way for them to meet in person.

* * *

She put on her new belt, tied over the black shirt at a jaunty angle, before putting on the dark grey vest that stretched almost unto her knees. She ran a finger across the fabric with a smile. It was soft, unlike anything she could’ve gotten on Jakku, but as she tested it between finger and thumb she could feel how firm it was too. She fixed the black bandages over her forearms before pulling on the tall boots, stood up and tested out how she felt. She allowed herself to grin at the empty room. Almost like a Jedi. All she needed was a lightsaber.

 _Today_.

Her hands reached up to her hair, pulling down the bun, before letting the string fall to the earth and using the other to fix enough of her hair with two clips, so that it wouldn’t get annoying, letting the rest fall free. Time to go.

Rose was off on a mission with Poe and a few of the other pilots, but Finn was there to see her off, pulling her into a tight hug and asking whether she was absolutely certain she didn’t need him to come.

Rey knew this was something she had to do alone.

Given everything, the journey to the healing cave was short and surprisingly uneventful. She didn’t get attacked, she didn’t even have to go particularly far from the centre of the Resistance and the First Order’s current confrontations. It made her a little nervous how close she was to a First Order base, then again it was hard imagining Ben going to all this effort only to take her out with a missile. That did not, however, mean that one of his crazy subordinates wouldn’t try anything.

But she made it to the cave, which lay on a fairly barren plain, a few mountaintops visible in the distance and a river some hundred feet away. It wasn’t much of a view but made for a nicely smooth landing and she hopped out, taking her satchel with the lightsaber pieces with her. Even after all her reading and all her research, she still wasn’t quite sure _how_ this was all meant to go down. But hopefully, once she was there…

Rey stepped inside the cave. It was dark, barely lit from the light outside, hard to make out any of her surroundings in any detail. From the splashing sounds at her feet and the gradual wetness in her toes, she quickly got a sense of the gradually deepening water. Her instinct told her she’d have to go a lot closer to the middle of the cave for this to work.

Might as well get this over with. Rey sighed and took off her boots, throwing her vest onto her satchel for good measure and taking out the two lightsaber halves. She stepped into the water, looking around at the cave warily. It came up to her ankles, cold and clear. The rocks she was stepping on were smooth and nearly soft, large flat things that rested near the surface. She waded in further and further, the water eventually coming up to just under her armpits. Luckily, she wouldn’t have to swim. All the while, she gripped the lightsaber pieces very hard.

And now… Now came the tricky bit. Rey stood in the darkness, trying to remember every detail she had been able to fish from those texts and Ben’s words. Asking the Force for a favour. Asking the Force to heal. Finding oneself, then giving life. She could do this. She could do this.

Breathing, Rey had found, was the only thing she could rely on to centre her. It was one thing Luke had taught her, at least, to listen to the rush of air into and out from her body. That and her heartbeat were the single sounds in the galaxy she could never escape, that would stay with her through every moment of her life. They were her constant companions, what made her _Rey_ \- nothing that could be washed away by the changes and loss and abandonment. Even when she was alone, like she had to be - even then… she was Rey. Just Rey. Only Rey.

It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t ever be enough. But it was who she was and it was all she had.

Her hands rested on the surface of the water, the gentle ripples of an inexplicable tide that swept to and away from brushing the tips of her fingers and the palms of her hands. It was cool and gentle, on the verge of being ticklish - but more calming than that. She breathed in and out with the flow of the water, feeling something outside of herself becoming in tune with what lay within. The ripple of the water, to and fro and to and fro and to and fro - that became her too, something more than Rey but still her.

It was so lonely, here. There was no connection, nothin to rely on. The two halves of the lightsaber floated on the water, still broken. The splintered off edges barely holding together in the shell she had encased them here. She was broken, too - a lot of edges that never quite fit together. _It can never be undone but can be made whole once more_. Those words had to be made into a truth now, an idea transformed into reality by the power of a wish, yet she struggled to believe them. There were things no one could overcome.

But she had no choice. She knew on some strange, instinctual level that the Force would only listen to her if she came to some kind of an acceptance. The extortionate price of unwilling truths in exchange for… maybe a chance to heal. Maybe something else entirely.

“I’m broken,” she said, voice cracking on every syllable, her words sounding like they weren’t her own but somehow entirely that, soaring away from her mouth before bounding against the cave walls and coming back towards her, filling her ears with their haunting echo. “I’m lonely.”

 _What do I need to make it whole_?

“Please,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes as the water beneath her fingertips responded to her every word. “Help me make it right.” And then - “I don’t want to be alone any more.”

She swallowed. Then called within herself to reach further, beyond herself and the water and even the cave. She remembered what she had done on Ach-To, opening herself to the Force, that frightening, insane power she had that didn’t belong to her but also didn’t _not_. She recalled reaching out for the connection she so desperately desired, her hand extending towards the only other person who had recognised her loneliness and understood it entirely. She reminded herself of the time they had breathed as one, guiding each other to feel this greater galaxy they could never escape, pounding against their minds, but maybe - if they found a way to make their peace, to make peace, to -

It was never just Rey. It had never been just Rey. She was a part of the galaxy and the galaxy was a part of her. The Force existed everywhere and it would grant her this. Her gift, her skill.

Her right hand reached out and closed over the coupling of the two halves, her eyes flying open as her fingers strained against the metal. She felt something pass from the water into her and out again through the metal and into the crystal halves, reigniting their connection and through it their life, allowing the Force to flow through them once more, existing in tune and together and as part of a greater whole. A blue light erupted from the metal, from her hand, radiating outwards and illuminating the cave in a pulsing, beautiful brightness - then receded again.

Rey knew instinctively that it had worked. Still, the moment she had waded out of the water, she flicked the ignition switch. The blues were steady and bright and… she had finally made it. _Finally_ gotten it to work. Rey couldn’t summon up any emotion other than relief.

* * *

It was on her way off the planet that it happened. The pulsing in the force bond, weird and sudden and giving her the horrible image of Ben fighting for his life. She had cut herself off from everything in that cave, even Ben, and now he was -

Oh no.

With a flick of the switch, her radio blared into life and the Resistance frequencies were buzzing with activity. As the force bond flickered in and out of existence, Rey understood what had happened. Ben had been ambushed. Ben was fighting for his life. The Resistance was trying to…

And Rey, damn her, couldn’t let it happen.

Panic seized her as she quickly located the Resistance signals and set her coordinates, clearing the planet and heading as fast as she could to the ambush, only a planet away from the nearby First Order base. However they had managed to lure him there or for whatever reason they would attempt such a dangerous strategy without informing their resident Jedi was beyond her, but all she knew was how fortunate she was that they were close. That there was still a chance she could stop this madness.

Rey saw him first through the smoke, using the Force more than any radio signals or physical senses to find him. He was still more visible than most of them, with that red lightsaber crackling fiercely, making him an easy target. Apparently it didn’t matter much - the ambush must’ve gone horribly wrong, with Kylo Ren still very much alive and in the process of mowing down Resistance fighters. Even at the distance she could see the snarl on his face, the frenzy the ambush had put him in as he fought with all his soul - to survive. To win.

She bared her teeth and twirled the staff, warding off several blaster bolts before bringing the saberstaff into her instinctive ready-position - then yelped when the blade singed the edge of the bandages on her arms. Right, she had to remember that these were live-blades she was fighting with now.

She had stumbled into chaos. And of a very different nature than she had expected.

It were her feet that did most of the work, carrying her towards him. She felt trapped inside her body, trapped within the path that inevitably brought her in his way. Even though it wasn’t fair. Even though she _knew_ this wasn’t on him.

They had tried to kill him. Wouldn’t any Resistance fighter shoot down stormtroopers exactly as indiscriminately as he was killing her allies now? People like Finn, who had never had the choice? Beyond the galactic war, the endless struggle between Light and Dark, here there was no right or wrong - and if there was, _she_ fell on the wrong side of it.

Her heart dropped when he noticed her. She could see it so clearly, his eyes widening, for a moment looking to the ignited saberstaff then back again, realisation in his eyes, but the residues of uncertainty. She wanted to tell him that she had come here to save him, not hurt him, to beg him to just _leave_. But even as she was thinking as much, another attack came from his side and Ben spun, dispatching summarily of his attacker with a snarl.

“No!” she screamed and ran forwards. His head jerked up in shock and he stared at her, eyes wide. He instinctively raised his lightsaber and he responded in kind, swirling the saberstaff with ease as one end clashed with the red. The blades locked and as their eyes met in turn - Rey didn’t know who had made the first move, but now it felt like they had sunk into the inevitability of the confrontation. She disengaged their blades and jumped back just a step, trying to figure out what to _say_ , what to do… _Leave, please_. _Let’s not do this._

Her body moved before her mind did and she spun the staff around, bringing it down with a slashing motion towards Ben’s shoulder. He snarled as he got his lightsaber up - too close to him for comfort - and pressed up with that incredible strength, however awkward the position might be. He ducked and spun away from under her staff, then brought his blade up with a powerful cut she barely deflected with the other blade. And they were off - Ben advancing on her with strong, decisive cuts as she warded him off, like she had in the forest. They were both more skillful now - yet he was tired and she was fighting with an unfamiliar weapon. So just like the forest.

She snarled as she struck at him from above, her anger bringing her new strength and causing even Ben to stumble under the assault. He managed to move from underneath her, advancing once more as his reverse-gripped slashes beat down on her ferociously. They moved faster and faster, the heat of the battle unleashing a wildness in Rey she hadn’t felt in a long time - since they had last been together in person, fighting side by side. And from his face and how he moved in the Force, she knew she was being matched step for step.

Their blades sparked as they locked again, frozen in place for a quivering instant as their eyes met again and Rey could feel as much as see the betrayal in his eyes. He looked near-demented - like he had in the throne room when she had pulled the lightsaber towards her. Then they moved again, blades sliding along each other until Rey’s was sizzling against the crossguard’s of Ben’s. If he twisted it around now… there was nothing between the smaller hilt and her exposed neck, nothing but her straining muscles holding him back. Her gaze dropped to it, something close to fear stirring in her, then back at Ben, whose eyes remained fixed on her and teeth remained bared.

“Step aside _now_ ,” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth, as furious as he had been in the forest, when he had told them that they weren’t done yet and she had shot at him.

But that was all she needed to know. He _still_ didn’t want her dead.

Her left hand slid down a little further and when she inhaled, she undid the catch that kept the two blades together. _Be calm_. She exhaled, and as she did she wrenched the blades apart, holding Ben’s blade up even as she spun the other one up and over both of their hands - where it hovered, for less than an instant. It was placed perfectly to slash through Ben’s hand. Or instead -

She adjusted the angle and brought the blade down on the hilt of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, sawing down into the grey metal. Ben was pushing up against her, breathing heavily at the same rate she was and she let out a groan, keeping the one saber steady as she used the other one to push through the hilt of the metal until her blade impacted his blade below, entrapping him and gradually ruining his weapon. She could see how close her blade was to his thumb, slowly singing the glove and as she briefly met his gaze again, she could see pain as well as fury. He let out a growl through his teeth and she yelled with exhaustion and effort, focusing again on the entrapped blade, then wrenching her arms away and bringing them down as Ben’s grip loosened and he had to snatch his hand away to prevent any accidental mutilation. Ben’s lightsaber dropped to the ground and the blades retracted as it settled in the soft soil. Without conscious intent, Rey flipped a blade and brought it crashing down on the hilt, _felt_ the kyber crystal fracture and the hilt come apart, destroyed as thoroughly as they had done the Skywalker lightsaber months ago.

It was like time froze. They shouldn’t have had time to look at each other, to lock eyes. She shouldn’t have had the chance to see the betrayal in his eyes, it shouldn’t have had the chance to imprint itself on her forever.

And then there was an explosion and Rey was knocked back. Not unconscious, this time, but close enough. She lost him in the smoke and the fumes and the fire of the battlefield, any apology she might want to call unspoken and unheard. But their bond still hummed and through it she could feel the pain of her betrayal.

Rey left in her own ship. A part of her hoped no one else would even know she had been there.

* * *

_As long as we’re on opposite sides of the war…_

* * *

_Why did I do that? Why did I do that?_

She hadn’t _had_ to do that, she hadn’t had to go that far. It had been a moment of instinct… not conscious thought, she hadn’t _wanted_ to… Did that make it better or worse?

Whatever Ben had done, whatever side he had chosen, he had helped her for weeks coming on months with repairing that lightsaber, the lightsaber that had belonged to his uncle and the grandfather he still cared about, had accepted that it was hers.

_It let me borrow it, no more. I won’t delude myself any longer of being worthy of my family’s heirlooms._

And now Rey had destroyed _his_ lightsaber, the one he had built for himself.

A horrible sense of guilt squeezed at her heart, making her feel trapped in her own body and circumstances and life. She _knew_ how bad what she had done was. And… kriff, she still wanted Ben to be here with her, but what if she had ruined any connection between them before she got another chance to turn him?

 _You can’t turn him._ She had told herself as much so many times, but it was _so hard_ to accept. It was just more waiting and it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair how they could talk to each through the bond and share so _much_ , but whenever they physically met… the whole thing seemed guaranteed to end in pain or heartbreak or both. Mostly with her on the inflicting side.

 _Only because he didn’t really want to hurt you. He_ could _have. You showed no such restraint_.

Rey brought her fist down, hitting down hard against her bunk, feeling the starts of hot tears in her eyes and feeling her head give off a familiar ache. Still she waited for the bond. Still she felt nothing inside.

* * *

The slight mercy that none of her friends were around, that she didn’t have to show any of them that damned lightsaber… No, everyone was dealing with the fallout of the failed ambush. Except the _hero of the hour_ \- how she hated that phrase - who was left alone to stew.

And stew she did.

Because, of course people had seen her. They’d seen her fight, maybe even against Ben. They probably thought she’d been a reinforcement, like this whole thing had been part of some greater plan and hadn’t been triggered by her panic when she’d felt Ben’s fear. No one had explained to her what the hell they’d been planning with that ambush anyway. Would she even want to know?

She realised it was Ben blocking her now. From experience, she guessed it couldn’t be forever. But it sure felt like it.

What was it she had had to admit in the cave? Broken and alone. Here she was.

_Still broken._

_Still alone_.

* * *

When Rey finally got her opportunity, she pounced on it. She could feel him straining to close the connection, making her push even harder to open it all the way. Determined to see him.

He didn’t even look at her when he finally appeared. Rey was instantly relieved to see that he seemed to have sustained no serious injury from the ambush - or not at least one that hadn’t be healed.

“Ben,” she breathed, taking half a step forwards. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what they were doing.”

He lifted his head to stare at her, messy hair falling all over his face in long, thick strands. Rey didn’t think she even realised how much she missed that face until she didn’t see it for a while, with those big lips that parted when he saw her and perpetually glistening eyes. But he didn’t say anything.

“No one told me about the ambush,” she continued. “I felt you through the force bond, I knew that something was wrong. So I found you through Resistance radio transmissions. I didn’t go there to fight, I wanted to protect you.”

Still nothing. But at least he was letting her say her piece.

“I didn’t want to attack you. When I saw you with the Resistance fighters… I know what they were doing. But I also know how desperate they are. And… and this war, it’s made us do things we regret. This is one of my regrets.” She was beginning to fumble for words, as if she hadn’t carefully tried to prepare this speech, desperate to find the right words. “One of my biggest, actually. So… I just wanted to distract you. I wanted us both to leave, everyone to leave. It was pointless, the whole thing was pointless. But when I saw you attacking someone…” She swallowed. “I acted. But then… I don’t know why I destroyed your lightsaber.”

He twitched at that, but she pressed on.

“It was instinct. I was… desperate. Angry.” She thought back to the cave, which had somehow given her the courage to say so many honest things to Ben now, yet she still choked up at the word - “Lonely.”

Ben stared back at her. She wondered whether he noticed the hand resting on her hip, where she had unclipped the saberstaff’s double-hilt. What he would think of it.

Rey paused. It had been a surprisingly easy decision to make, given the amount of effort that had gone into… all of this. But she also knew it was the right one. She stretched out her hand, which now held the saberstaff. “You take it.”

Now Ben stirred, shock spreading across his features as his gaze moved between the lightsaber and her and back again. “What?”

It was hard even to acknowledge how happy hearing that voice again made her.

“Like you said,” she continued, voice even. “It belonged to your family. I kind of want my own anyway.” She shrugged. “And I broke yours. So right now you don’t have a lightsaber.”

“Is this some kind of trick?”

Her heart sank at the question. She shook her head. “I don’t lie to you.”

Rey kept holding out the hilt as Ben kept staring at it.

“You worked for weeks and weeks to repair it.”

“I didn’t really work all that much. Mostly just stared at it. Besides, you helped.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I made a mistake, Ben. I want to make up for that mistake.”

Ben stared at her uncomprehendingly, lips silently working for a while before they formed any words. “You ruined my lightsaber. After I helped you. Like… like you were just waiting for the opportunity to destroy me.”

Rey’s jaw clenched. Maybe this was what he’d originally intended to say to her, before she’d offered him this. Or maybe he needed to say it anyway. “I know what it looked like. But it wasn’t like that, I told you,” she said, knowing they were both aware of the irony of her apology so quickly on the heels of his previous one. She didn’t think she could make it through many more of them, on either the giving _or_ receiving end. “I want to make things right.”

“Why would you give a dangerous weapon to your enemy?”

“You’re not my enemy,” she said. “The First Order is.”

“I’m its Supreme Leader.”

“Then don’t be.”

“Your Resistance has amply demonstrated its opinion of me.”

“Because you’re leading the _enemy_ ,” said Rey. “You know it could change.”

Ben fell silent. Somehow they found themselves back at their familiar stalemate, and today Rey wasn’t about to push it. All she wanted was -

Rey stepped forward, so the saberstaff was even closer to him now. “Look,” she said, “it’s an old relic anyway. Remember how it fell apart when we just _tugged_ at it? I can do better.”

“I wouldn’t have put it together like _this_ ,” said Ben. “I don’t fight with a staff, never have.”

“You can learn,” she said. “It’s not that hard. Besides, you can detach this thing, so you can always use both at once.”

“I can’t do that either.”

Rey let out a small exasperated sound. “You managed to adjust to your weird hilt situation so I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“But why -”

“Ben. Just take it. Please.” She looked at him, then stretched out again. Silently imploring him.

So he took it. Their fingers brushed over the hilt, and the touch shuddered through both of them as their gazes locked as powerfully as their lightsabers had. She heard her own intake of breath and how it mirrored Ben’s, fingers gliding over his as he held the other part of the hilt, meeting in the middle of the staff. They stared into each other’s eyes, both holding on to their weapon. Neither let go for a long moment, one Rey wished could last together, like they could always stand here and be with the other. Like this could be forever.

Rey drew back, leaving nothing in the place of Ben’s touch but regret and emptiness. The touch was too little and left her hungry for more, as loath as she was to admit it. Even to herself. Ben was left with the saberstaff in his hand, bringing it towards his chest and turning it around reverentially.

“It didn’t call to me,” he whispered.

“I gave it to you,” said Rey. “And that should be enough.” She was tempted to glare at the lightsaber, adding a silent _or else_.

“Guess it could be useful,” said Ben, looking up to meet her gaze. “If you’re ever unarmed and in need of a spare a weapon.”

“Not if I’m fighting you,” said Rey with the ghost of a smile.

“Not if you’re fighting me,” he echoed.

“Then let’s not do that.”

“That easy, is it?”

“Yeah. It is.”

As the bond between them stretched on, as they gazed into each other’s eyes, they both knew it would never be that easy.


	2. Blue

Poe stormed into the room, Finn and Rose almost running behind him to keep up as he made a beeline for Rey.She instinctively took a half-step back. Rey had been summoned to the conference room to ‘wait for Poe’s return’, which was an unusual request but hardly one that matched the tangle of distinctly unfriendly emotions that were rolling off Poe.

It was the first time she’d seen any of them since _that_ battle. Who even knew where they’d been. It had given her the chance to carefully recite her story of what exactly had happened to the lightsaber she’d been trying to fix, but it didn’t seem like Poe was willing to give her the chance to speak first.

“He has the wrong colour,” said Poe. “The lightsaber’s the wrong colour.” BB-8 followed right after, coming to rest right next to Poe and beeping as it turned from Rey to Poe.

“What?” asked Rey before her brain caught up to her mouth. When it did, her heart started beating a little faster.

“What do you think?” asked Poe, stopping not three feet away from her flanked by Finn and Rose, whose expressions were both uncomfortable. Poe’s lips were quivering and his nostrils flared with the beginnings of rage. “Kylo Ren has a _blue_ lightsaber. I’m not an expert but that’s not the colour the Dark Side typically uses for its lightsabers. And it certainly isn’t the Kylo Ren lightsaber we’ve come to know and love.”

“So he got a new one,” said Rey.

Poe’s eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “Any idea where from?”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you have a lightsaber?”

“No,” she said. “They’re hard to come by.”

Poe stared at her for a moment, then a smile appeared on his face. He turned and walked to the nearest chair, placing his hands on the top and leaning against it as he nodded slowly. He looked at Rey again, a mockery of speculative curiosity in his voice. “You had one you were trying to repair, didn’t you? Took really long at doing that, spending Resistance manpower and resources for that weapon? Because, hey, those Jedi weapons are so important, right?” He paused. No one spoke. “I ended up getting some reports from the battle on Kertzun a while back. You fought Kylo there, didn’t you? Now, funny story, that’s the last time anyone saw Kylo’s lightsaber. But _you_ had one. A new, blue one, shaped like a staff. Isn’t that right?” More silence. “Where’s the lightsaber?”

“Kylo stole it, didn’t he?” said Finn, finally intervening as he stared between his two friends. “It’s not your fault, Rey. It’s his.”

Rey couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Is that true?” asked Poe and from his tone, he clearly didn’t believe it.

Because if it were, why wouldn’t she have told one of them already? Warned them?

It was strange. She had tried to push this back as long as she possibly could, as if she could continue concealing things forever. Like these two halves of her life could somehow coexist alongside each other. This new uneasy status quo she had won had been so precious, the closest she had ever gotten to a period of happiness. She had really believed it could continue.

“I gave him the lightsaber,” said Rey.

This was met with a stunned silence, with them trying to absorb what she had said and her… She was trying to steel herself for what was to come. A part of her really wanted to run. It was one thing to face battle and narrowly avoid death, it was quite another to have to talk to her friends, to have to be honest about… about all of it.

Rose was the first one to recover. “Why would you do that?”

“I broke his.”

Rey knew the moment she said it that it was a poor choice of words, the wrong way to get across what exactly she was doing and why they shouldn’t fire her out of the nearest airlock. It just kind of… slipped out. With Leia it had been one thing, because Leia cared for Ben and Rey had gone to her and had been on some level able to control the story she was telling. This...

“Congratulations,” said Poe, voice icy. “That sounds like something to celebrate over a bottle of whisky, not an opportunity to offer him a new shiny replacement.”

“But he helped me repair mine!” Rey exclaimed, feeling she was gradually making a bad situation worse but not really able to help herself. This was all coming out wrong.

“You…” Poe started, eyes narrowing so much they were almost closed. He threw his hands in the air and briefly turned away. “This is insane.”

“Kylo Ren helped you repair the lightsaber,” said Finn. Rey immediately turned to him, startled by the hollow quality to his voice.

“Rey…” said Rose slowly. “How can he have helped you? You hadn’t seen each other after the Supremacy was destroyed, not until that battle. Right?”

Rey swallowed, aware of the eyes trained at her. “Not in person, no. We have a… connection in the Force.”

“A connection with Kylo Ren,” Finn repeated. She looked at him again, at the inscrutable expression on his face. “Please tell me this is some kind of sick joke.”

At that, a flare of anger rose in Rey. “It’s _not_ ,” she said. “The Force allows us to… to see each other and talk. When I was on Ach-To, I -”

“Wait a sec,” said Poe. “You mean to tell me this has gone on since you were with Luke?”

“Not continuously,” said Rey. “It stopped for a while after Crait. But… since then…”

“You said the lightsaber broke when you _fought_ Kylo Ren.”

“It did. But only after he killed Snoke.”

Rose gasped, Finn’s eyes widened as he grimaced horribly, while Poe just let out an ugly laugh.

“ _Kylo Ren_ killed _Snoke_?” He shook his head and continued wryly - “What a crazy bastard, always finding ways to keep you on your toes.”

“You said _you_ killed Snoke,” said Finn.

“I helped,” said Rey, neglecting to mention that the help she provided was mostly providing a distraction. “I couldn’t tell you the details, it would’ve been too hard to explain.”

“So instead you lied,” Finn said.

“Sorry,” said Rose, helpfully steering the conversation around, “so you talked on Ach-To? And then you went to the Supremacy? Why?”

“To turn him,” said Rey quietly, met with expressions of disbelief and incredulity. “And… he almost did. He killed Snoke, we fought the Praetorian guards together. It was working. But then he…” She swallowed. “He wanted to rule. I pulled the lightsaber towards me. He pulled it towards him. And we broke it, knocking us both out. He didn’t even know we’d broken it until later since I woke up earlier.”

A moment of silence.

By now, Poe’s expression had morphed into raised eyebrows and a half-grin. “You woke up first? With the Supreme Leader still unconscious? And you decided not to shoot him?”

Rey’s brow furrowed. “I couldn’t just _murder_ him!”

“Why not?” asked Finn quietly as fury danced in his eyes. “He would’ve done the same to you.”

Rey shook her head with certainty. “He wouldn’t have. He could have let Snoke kill me, he could have still taken over. He didn’t.”

“Why’s that?” said Poe.

There wasn’t a single answer that could do that question justice, a question she had often asked herself. Certainly not an answer she could say to Poe, any of them maybe. “I don’t know.”

Poe nodded slowly. “You don’t know,” he echoed. “So let me get this straight. You and Kylo Ren broke this ancient weapon of the Jedi which had been passed from Skywalker to Skywalker and eventually fell into your hands. You had it for all of three days and then destroyed it, in the process knocking out the supreme leader and leaving his unconscious body behind, safe and sound. Then you had the pieces and spent _months_ hunting for a way to repair it, because it’s a _Jedi’s weapon_ and you _need it_. And then, once you reconstruct it… you pass it on to Kylo Ren, the leader of the _enemy_ , of the First Order who almost ruined us and who have murdered our friends at every opportunity, Kylo Ren who we’ve been trying to fight back against all this time, whose weapon you had just conveniently destroyed? Is that about right?”

Rey felt a twinge of annoyance. “That about sums it up, yeah.”

“Have you been in touch? Since the battle?”

“Well. Yeah, that’s how I gave him the lightsaber.”

A pause. “You said your force connection allowed you to talk to each other.”

“Yes. But we can also touch. Or - or - um… pass objects.”

Poe nodded, half-smile back in place. “Last question,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Have you to the best of your knowledge either willingly or unwillingly passed on any information pertaining to the Resistance, including but not limited to intel, location, information about its members, affiliates or allies?”

“No!” said Rey indignantly, which was more or less true.

“Are you sure?” said Poe, giving her a long look.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Right,” said Poe, “I’m going to leave now because otherwise I’ll try and strangle you - and I doubt that’d end particularly well for me. This’ll be a bit of a new departure for me, seeing as I’m about to voluntarily check up on protocol.” He looked at Rey. “In the mean time, I’d just like to say how extraordinarily reckless you’ve been - and coming from me that’s saying something. You’ve put the lives of everyone in the Resistance at risk, you’ve been palling around with our worst enemy and you’ve lied to all your friends and comrades. Good job.” He strode over to the door and it slid open with a hiss. Then he hesitated, halfway across the threshold, looking back at Rey. “Does Leia know?”

“I told her a few weeks back. Not long before she left.”

“And what did she say?”

“That it was… my choice. What to do.”

Poe examined her for a long moment. Then he nodded, jaw clenched. “This day just gets better and better,” he said and left without another word.

The three of them stood in silence for a few seconds, then Rose stirred.

“I should - I should see what he’s going to do,” she said, looking from one to the other in concern before running after Poe.

That left Rey and Finn alone, facing each other. She knew Finn had said way too little during what had just passed, also knew that Finn had the most reason to hate Ben.

“Finn?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rey opened her mouth to speak, but needed some time to find the words. “I didn’t know how to.”

“It’s been weeks.”

“I knew you wouldn’t… like it.”

“ _Like it_?” repeated Finn incredulously. “How could I possibly _like_ my best friend speaking to that monster?”

“You don’t know everything about him,” said Rey, hating herself for how defensive she sounded.

“I know enough.”

“That’s what I said,” Rey said, shaking her head. “But I was wrong.”

Finn let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Yeah. He didn’t turn, did he?”

“That’s not what I -” Rey stopped herself, determined to stay calm. “No.”

“Why would you even _think_ he…”

“I can’t explain it. But I know things weren’t as simple as they seemed. And I _know_ he can still be turned.”

“ _Still_? You’re _still_ holding on to this?”

“I -” started Rey, but didn’t know what else to say.

Silence.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t tell me you were a stormtrooper,” she answered quietly.

“That’s different.”

“I know it is. I do. But… it was so hard to tell the truth. I didn’t know what to do. What to say.”

Finn took a deep breath. “Rey,” he said with effort, “I’m trying to understand. I really am. But… you know he’s a monster, right? I don’t know what happened between the two of you. But after everything…”

“You were a stormtrooper, people can change.”

“I left when I was ordered to hurt people! By him!”

“I’m not saying you’re the same, but he can still turn!”

“If your story is anything to go by, he’s refused every chance to.”

“Which doesn’t mean I won’t be there for him any more. Ben didn’t deserve any of this and he’s made terrible choices. But I won’t stop believing he can make better ones.”

“ _Ben_?” said Finn in disbelief. “That’s what you call him?”

“That’s his name.”

Finn shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Rey. But people like that, you don’t save.”

“I feel that darkness inside myself,” said Rey. “Every time… If we had swapped places, I don’t know whether I wouldn’t have done what he did too.”

“You wouldn’t have,” said Finn, shaking his head. “You’re different, Rey. You’re good.”

“Stop saying that!” yelled Rey. “Everybody thinks I’m this - this perfect Jedi trainee. I’m _not,_ all right? I’m _nobody_ , just some desert orphan. Just because I have the Force doesn’t mean I’m the next Skywalker.”

“Luke Skywalker believed in you. He trained you.”

“He barely did. And I don’t need or want his belief.”

“You want _Kylo Ren’s_?”

Rey was about to tell him that, yeah, maybe she did. Or that she had it already, that she’d always had it while everybody else never stopped underestimating her. But she stopped herself.

“He slashed my back open. He tortured Poe. And he’s leading the people who are currently slaughtering their way through the galaxy.”

“Don’t you think I don’t know that?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t think you were on first name terms with him a few minutes ago!”

“It’s more complicated than -”

“You know what?” said Finn. “I can’t do this right now.” He turned and started walking, before turning back for a moment to look at her. “It’s not just you talking to him. Or giving him a lightsaber. Or you defending him.” He paused. “Remember that guy who said you were talking to yourself? You were actually talking to Kylo, right?”

Rey didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

“I defended you so much,” said Finn, the hollow disappointment in his voice making her flinch. “And I know I didn’t tell you about being a stormtrooper but… we’re friends now, Rey. What you said then… I thought it meant something to you. But it didn’t and you didn’t tell me any of this for so long.” He took a breath. “I wish you had.”

He didn’t give her the chance to say anything else.

* * *

It seemed to take forever to get away, to be able to head to her sleeping quarters where her blanket and her pillow waited, where she could bury herself and just… hide. She jumped in, not bothering to undress, pulling the blanket all the way over her head and scrunching her face against the pillow and feeling her head ache.

She had betrayed Ben, had taken his help for granted. And yes, she was protecting her friends, her side - it was her duty to defend the Resistance. But _they_ had ambushed _him_ and she hadn’t just… It wasn’t just keeping back, it was destroying his lightsaber.

And maybe he didn’t hate her for that and she _had_ given him the lightsaber she had worked so hard to fix. But in the process everything else was crumbling down and… Well, of course it had. Of course it would. How couldn’t it?

She didn’t cry. Just curled up tighter and hugged herself, willing sleep to come. Any oblivion it offered had to be better than feeling like this. No force bond to keep her company, either. Or maybe, now that Ben had the lightsaber, he would shut her out.

 _He can’t do it forever. You know that_.

It wasn’t much of a comfort.

* * *

Rey had to drag herself out of bed the next shift to face Rose, who had been enthusiastically knocking.

“If you’re here to have a go at me, I’m not interested,” said Rey.

“I’m not,” said Rose. “Promise.”

So Rey followed Rose to the workstation as Rose told her very quickly about the new supplies that had come in, and how if they coordinated things properly they had the chance to get a new tactical advantage over the First Order, and how they were beginning to look into methods of sabotage that could really turn the tide - Rose couldn’t tell her everything right now, but maybe, maybe they could really change things.

Rey let it wash over her, trying her best to act like everything was normal and she wasn’t still half-expecting Rose to explode at her. But Rose didn’t, and once they began work they quickly fell into their usual companionable silence. Until -

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Rose.

“About what?” Rey replied, unnecessarily.

“I don’t know. Kylo Ren. Finn. The First Order. Any of it.”

“So you can pass it on to Finn?”

A pause. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Rey turned to Rose, who met her gaze evenly. She felt a stab of shame to add to all of the guilt she had been feeling already. “I know,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rose handed her the wrench she needed.

“So you don’t hate me?”

“Why would I? I don’t know the full picture, I’ve never even met the guy.” Rose shrugged. “And there isn’t really anything you could say to make me _hate_ you.”

“Tell Finn that,” she muttered.

“Finn doesn’t hate you.”

“I know that. But…

“You should know that he stood up for you with Poe,” said Rose.

Rey blinked and looked up in surprise. “What?”

“Poe was furious, he said if you were communicating with the enemy then you couldn’t do any missions until you stopped. He said someone… _like that_ shouldn’t even be in the Resistance. It was bad - you’re lucky I caught him before he made a public announcement. I don’t think he would’ve but… Anyway, Finn told him he was being an idiot.”

Rey took in that information. It made her feel better. A little better, anyway. “And what do you think?” she asked. Then added - “Be honest. Please.”

Rose hesitated. “I don’t know. Finn probably knows you better than we do, and I trust his judgement. And I do know you, a bit, and I trust you too. But I get where Poe’s coming from. Kylo Ren _is_ the enemy, he’s leading the enemy. Even if you don’t _intend_ to pass on any information, you could let something slip.”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“It’s not about being stupid,” said Rose. She was frowning. “I don’t like it,” she said bluntly. “And I’m not sure I understand it. Force powers like the ones you have make people nervous, _especially_ given the rumours that Kylo Ren was once a student of Luke Skywalker himself.”

“That’s true. He was.”

“Yeah. I don’t pretend to understand all of that stuff. If you really think there’s something there… I don’t know. I can’t completely close myself off from the possibility, you know?”

This was far better a response than Rey had dared dream for, quite probably better than she deserved. “It’s different, talking to him. A lot of things happened nobody knows about. And all this time…” She swallowed.

Rose turned a pipe piece over in her hands, frowning down at it. “It’s a lot to tell, I can imagine. It must’ve been. I know you wouldn’t want to hurt Finn, I know you wouldn’t have wanted to lie.”

Rey hadn’t. Then again, she had taken by far the most comfortable option. “I know there’s a lot he wouldn’t - _doesn’t_ \- understand.”

“I can’t really blame him.”

Rey nodded and went back to her work. There wasn’t really a lot she could expect from either Finn or Rose, let alone Poe. It wasn’t even like she’d given them the whole story. And she couldn’t, really - there were secrets that weren’t hers to tell.

“It’s hard for him,” said Rose after a while. Rey looked up. “I’m only starting to understand… the First Order, what it did to him. It’s horrible.”

Rey nodded slowly. “I know that.”

“Obviously… Kylo’s pretty closely tied to all that. Even before he was leader.”

“He’s done a lot of terrible things.”

She knew Rose was looking at her, clearly explaining something else. Some sort of justification, perhaps. An understanding.

“But I’ve also seen how Snoke treated Be- Kylo. I’m not forgetting what happened to Finn. It’s just… more complicated.”

“Okay,” said Rose. “Just remember, he’s on your side.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Rose sighed. “When it comes down to it… I’d like to destroy them all for what they did. But I also know that’s not how we’ll win. So when it comes down to it, I guess I trust your judgement too.”

Rey’s throat was feeling very tight. “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it. So, what now?”

“Hm?”

“You still don’t have a lightsaber.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “I guess I wasted your hard work too.” That made it worse again. “Sorry.”

“I said don’t worry about it. I would’ve loved working on that lightsaber even if it never came to anything. And you succeeded, didn’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Are you… are you going to fix his? Or build a new one?”

“I don’t have his,” said Rey. “And I doubt he’d be eager to volunteer it after…” _That_. “But… I don’t know. I thought I would, but I think if I tell Poe I’m gonna be spending even more time and resources to build a _new_ lightsaber he’ll really kick me out.”

“Poe will get over himself. It’s not like he hasn’t messed up plenty of times,” said Rose, and surprisingly there was a bit of an edge to her voice. “So how about it? You could use a Jedi’s weapon.”

Rey half-smiled. “I doubt many Jedi would do what I did.”

“Well they can’t have been too great at what they were doing, or they wouldn’t all be gone.” Rose made a face at Rey’s startled expression. “Too much?”

“No. Not too much. Just right, actually.” They exchanged a smile.

“Can I help again?”

“I figured you’d be sick of looking through Jedi texts with me,” said Rey.

Rose laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s the highlight of my day.”

“Yeah, but I gave away the lightsaber you wasted so much time helping me fix…”

“And now you’re trying to build a new one. That strikes me as a natural progression.” Rose grinned at her. “You’re working your way up.”

Rey let out a huff of laughter, feeling a lot better than she had a few minutes ago. “That’s a generous way of looking at it.”

* * *

Rey wouldn’t ever admit it to him or anyone else, but she was nervous about her next encounter with Ben. She thought that last encounter had been concluded with a peace of some sort, but some part of her remained convinced she had unforgivably screwed up and the next time they saw each other, Ben would spit in her face - or worse, laugh at her. She knew she had made the right choice in giving him the lightsaber. And yet she still wasn’t sure of it.

As it happened, the next time she felt the beginnings of the connection she was the one to break it off. She was in the middle of the mess hall with Rose and somehow knew it wouldn’t be the best place for a chat. Even if the others couldn’t see him.

The next time, Ben cut her off. That was when she got really worried - stupidly worried, because she had also cut _him_ off and he probably was just in a meeting or giving commands or in the shower -

Rey stopped that train of thought right there and did her very best to squash the mental image that had come up, entirely unbidden.

 _He’s not avoiding you_ , she told herself sternly. Now she just had to get herself to believe it.

Her worries ended up being unfounded, because when the connection next flared into being, neither of them cut it off.

Rey tried not to fiddle as she stood opposite to him, tried not to let her nerves betray her. He wasn’t in his full armour, instead sporting a tunic that might be an undergarment or some kind of nightshirt. The thought crossed her mind that she had never stumbled in on him with his chest free like she had that memorable first time, then she told herself to get a grip.

“Hello,” said Ben.

“Hello,” said Rey.

This was too normal a greeting, making it weird. Enemies linked through time and space by a bond in the cosmic Force didn’t say ‘hello’ to each other.

“How are you doing?” asked Ben, then pressed his lips together looking like he wanted to die. Rey knew the feeling.

“Fine. And you?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Rey stared at a bit of the wall past Ben’s left ear, fairly certain they were both lying. Once the silence started getting really awkward, she cleared her throat. “How’s the lightsaber?” And nearly kicked herself. “I mean - your new -”

“I know what you meant,” said Ben. Her gaze flicked to him involuntarily and he wasn’t looking angry, not now. Very nearly… bewildered - though why he would be, Rey couldn’t say. “It’s… different. But good.”

“Great,” said Rey. “I’m glad it’s even working.”

She was tempted to bite off her tongue at this juncture, having just said she was glad the weapon the supreme leader was using to kill Resistance members was working. Ugh.

Ben swallowed. “Are you sure you don’t…” He trailed off, but Rey could guess what he wanted to say.

She looked down at the ground, not even sure what would happen if she accepted. Not that it mattered. She shook her head.

A pause.

“And you?” asked Ben.

“Hm?”

“You don’t… You don’t have one now.”

Rey shrugged. “I’m used to it by now. It’s not like I’ve ever had one for long.”

Ben studied her and it felt like so long since he’d looked at her like that, even though it obviously hadn’t been. “You want to go without?”

“I’m thinking of making my own. You were still searching for the crystal cave, right?”

“Yeah.”

Would he tell her? Even if he found them, why would he let her know? Especially after… Their eyes met and Rey was pretty sure Ben knew what she was thinking.

“Hopefully I’ll know soon,” said Ben. “I’ll tell you.”

Rey wondered what her friends would think if they saw this conversation. What Poe would think. He would probably throw her out then and there, and Rey couldn’t exactly blame him.

“If you..” started Ben. “It’s different, making one from scratch. If you wanted some advice on how to…” He stopped, looked at Rey with his head tilted a little, the offer hanging in the air. Kriff, this was insane. They were just going to… to try to go on again, like they could continue their _collaboration_. And then? Once they were finished with this? Were they just going to keep coming up with new projects to work on together?

All while the war raged on.

She nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

Another silence.

Rey sighed. “So how do you go about building a lightsaber?”

“Do you have designs in those texts of yours?”

She shrugged and sat down, some of the tension draining away from both of them. “A few drawings. They’re pretty old and I figured they might’ve updated lightsaber construction technique since. I did get a pretty good sense of how they’re put together but… well, should I just copy your family’s lightsaber? Where do I get all the parts?”

“I can help you with that stuff,” said Ben, sounding pleased with himself. “We had to construct our own lightsabers as part of our training.”

“With Luke?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to it?”

Ben tilted his head to one side. “You decoupled half of my grandfather’s lightsaber and used it to stab mine, shattering the crystal.”

“Oh,” said Rey. “Right.” She frowned. “Wait. It’s the same one?”

Ben didn’t correct her, which counted as agreement.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t all red and crackly when you first made it?”

“No. It was blue.”

“How do the crystals change colour?”

“They get broken. And then they get put together wrong.” Ben’s lips twitched, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. “All the pain gets poured into them. The crystal gets… hurt, it’s wounded by the Dark Side of the Force.”

 _And that’s what you did?_ she wanted to say but didn’t.

“How about your new weapon?” asked Rey, leaning back on her hands as she looked up at Ben. “What’s using it like?”

Ben hesitated, then picked up the lightsaber, frowning down at it. “It works like it’s meant to. I’m still not used to fighting with it though. The two blades…” He stopped.

“Have you been doing much fighting recently?”

He gave her a look, but answered anyway. “No,” he said quietly. “I have trained, though.”

With whom? Maybe his mysterious knights, which was an odd thought but better than the image of Ben slicing up some hapless goon. “Show me.”

He blinked at her a few times, then stood up slowly, looking profoundly awkward as he ignited the blades. “I hope you’re not in a small room.”

“It’s fine, as long as you don’t go crazy,” she said.

He hesitated, then started spinning the blades around with practiced speed, before going into a quick succession of slashes and jabs. She watched him critically, noticing that he was a lot more careful than she had been at keeping the blades well away from his clothes. When he came to a stand-still, the blades were held behind him as he stood there with knees bent, an all-together different fighting position to the one she was used to from him.

Well, he was certainly adaptable.

“You’re leaving yourself too open,” said Rey. “Your left side is too vulnerable if you’re fighting against someone else with a lightsaber.”

“Who would that be?” he asked, straightening as he considered Rey intently.

She rolled her eyes. “Why bother training at all then? Also, you’re barely taking advantage of the blade’s length. Use it. Don’t forget you can always just go for the legs.”

“I’ll try not to,” said Ben with a raised eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Rey thought about it. “Do it again.”

She watched the way he moved, instantly shedding any awkwardness to spinning with a grace and ferocity that demanded her full attention. The way he twisted around, the casual firmness of his grip on the lightsaber and the practiced placement of his feet…

He came to a standstill and Rey had to shake herself to stop just staring dumbly.

“And?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Not bad.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

“So do you think I should -” started Rey, then the force bond broke off again. At least they hadn’t parted on too bad terms, this time.

* * *

Rey hadn’t spoken to Finn since their argument - well, despite the awkward greeting or two in the hallway. When Rose brought them together, it was probably only through her sheer determination that she managed to do so.

“Come on,” said Rose, pulling Finn forwards. “She’s our best hope of getting this off the ground, you _know_ that.”

“There’s other options -”

“Not when it’s still so uncertain, but with Rey we basically have a small army, there’s so much we can do.”

“As long as she doesn’t pass it on to Kylo Ren,” said Finn moodily.

Rose groaned. “Finn!”

“What? I’m just saying.”

“Just tell her.”

“Fine,” said Finn, looking right at Rey, who watched him with folded arms. “I think we can get stormtroopers to defect.”

* * *

Once Finn revealed his extensive plans and Rey had to solemnly swear she wouldn’t be passing any of them on ( _especially_ to Supreme Leader Kylo Ren because he definitely was _not_ allowed to know about this and if Rey even thought of revealing this sensitive information on to the enemy she was dooming them all, not just her friends but also plenty of innocents who had unlike Kylo Ren never gotten a better chance so could she at least try to -), they got to work on making those plans a reality. So once again she was working in parallel, providing muscle to Finn and Rose’s operations at the fringe of the Resistance, while working with Ben - and Rose whenever she had time - on designing her own lightsaber.

“Hm,” said Ben, flicking through the pages. “Well, there’s one or two you could work off. But these texts are old and the technology has changed a lot since then. People don’t make lightsabers like this any more.”

“Well,” said Rey, “I’ve repaired one. So I know pretty well how they work. All it should take is to get all the pieces and just assemble it.”

“Not quite that simple,” said Ben absent-mindedly, still staring down. “You can incorporate some of these designs, though. There’s some pretty solid concepts in here, a different handle design for one.”

“Make it my own,” she said, mulling it over. “Yeah, I like it.”

His brow furrowed as he paused on a page. “What’s up with the burning space lizard?”

Rey shrugged. “Let me know if you figure it out.”

Maybe, maybe there was even a new routine she could somehow settle into. She hadn’t seen Poe since the fight but he clearly hadn’t kicked her out - yet. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen much of him before either. Finn wasn’t speaking to her much, which was horrible and Rey still wanted to properly explain to him… Whenever either of them brought it up, it ended badly, however. Yet apart from he remained begrudgingly polite. For her part, Rose stepped up her efforts, constantly at either Finn or her’s side as she scrambled to complete her own duties while spending plenty of time around Rey to fill the hole Finn had left. And, while Rey wasn’t a stranger to being alone, she was convinced her friend was trying to be as consciously supportive as possible. Which Rey wasn’t going to complain about.

And yet many of her frustrations she still ended up voicing to Ben.

“I figured I’d just get all the parts and work it out from there. Screw them together.”

Ben gave her a long-suffering look. “You need to actually design it.

But even here he was a great help, providing the drawings they needed with hand-made sketches inked out with incredible calligraphy skills.

When he saw her gaping at them, he asked her what the matter was.

“Nothing,” said Rey. “It’s just…” _Beautiful_. She swallowed. “Okay. I’m not quite sure about the hilt. Is it really wide enough to fit the modulator?”

Ben frowned and launched into his explanation.

* * *

“What do you think?” Rey asked, handing Rose the drawings. She examined them carefully.

“Did you make these?” Rose asked.

“Ben did.”

Rose made a face. ”He’s a good artist, I’ll give him that.”

“And?”

“I like it. Nice balance. I’m hardly an expert in close combat but I imagine it’d be good for a weightless blade.” She made a face. “Wish I could’ve seen the completed saberstaff to play around with it.”

“Sorry.”

“Whatever. Of course,” said Rose with a half-smile, “if I ever get to meet him I can test it out myself.”

Rey’s eyebrows flew up. “You really think that might happen?”

“That’s what you want, right?”

Rey hesitated, wondering why Rose thought she wanted Ben. “What if… what if we can’t win without him?”

“We have you.”

“Yeah. One Dark, one Light. If that’s all…” Rey swallowed. “I should have turned him already.”

“How do you work that out?”

“I keep failing. I barely managed to fix a lightsaber and now I’m trying to make one? And I keep thinking I can turn him but I fail and I fail and I -“

“That’s ridiculous, Rey.”

“It isn’t.”

“Failure’s how we grow.”

Rey groaned. “That’s all well and good, but my failures get people killed! None of us can afford to fail. I can’t just _accept_ failures as some kind of natural part of life -”

“You have to,” said Rose. “It’s useless to fight. What do you think, we’ll all wake up perfect one day? We won’t, we never will. Raging against failure is pointless, it’s like raging at the sun rising in the morning. It’s a part of life. And sure, you might try to blow up the sun, but - but there’s plenty of other suns out there. So all you’ve been doing is getting mad at something beyond your control. It’s not the way forward, Rey.”

 _But…_ “It’s so _hard_.”

“I know that,” said Rose.

Rey sighed. “I hope you guys are doing better than I am.”

“What, emotionally?” asked Rose dryly. “The stormtrooper thing is going about as well as could be expected. It’s a slow and arduous process. We’ve managed to get a few people within the First Order on side, but we have to work slowly. If they find out…” She trailed off and Rey shivered.

“I hope it works.”

“So do I. Kriff, so does Finn. He thinks he has something to prove with all this, like he has to show the Resistance that he’s worth something. I’ve tried to tell him he doesn’t, but it’s been a tough sell.”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah. You’re both pretty stubborn, in your own ways.”

Rey made a face.

Rose snorted. “Well, it’s the truth. But you’ll both figure it out somehow. I know that.”

* * *

Ben looked up when Rey placed a blanket around his shoulders.

“Blanket,” said Rey, as if that explained why she’d wrapped around him.

He kept staring at her.

“You look cold,” she muttered. “Though I don’t know why, under all those layers.” She squinted at him. “Are you some place chilly?”

“Yes,” said Ben blandly. “A First Order command ship.”

“They don’t pay for heating?”

Ben raised an eyebrow at her. “The heat from your location is starting to sink through. Gone back to a desert planet?”

“Not all desert planets are warm,” Rey sniffed. “And deserts aren’t the only warm places in the galaxy. Or maybe the Resistance does pay for heating.”

“Wasteful,” said Ben dryly.

They spoke a few more minutes about lightsaber design before he disappeared and a few minutes later Rey realised he had taken the blanket with him. Rey sighed, realised she was going to have to request another and come up with some excuse. Briefly, she considered walking up to Poe and telling him the truth, something along the lines of, _Oh I need another blanket because I gave mine to Kylo Ren - he was cold you see_ , and she almost started giggling.

* * *

The next time she spoke to Rose, she felt Ben at the edge of her awareness - suddenly - and when she turned she was sure she could see a shadow. It wasn’t like it was normally, not a full blown bond. More the glimmerings of a connection when she had let her guard down. She wondered how long he had been there, whether he had been watching her.

It was weird and more than a little disconcerting. Once again, Rey was left to wonder just what this bond could do.

* * *

“Sorry,” said Ben. “I took your blanket.”

“No,” said Rey. “Keep it.”

Ben frowned, and held it out again. “Somehow I don’t think the Resistance has quite the same resources as the First Order has.”

“Or maybe you should just start using those resources on blankets rather than weapons,” said Rey curtly.

“Is that what the Resistance does?”

“We’re considering it.”

Ben’s lips twitched. Certainly not a smile, but the potential of one.

* * *

Rey went with Finn and Rose on their mission to Kijimi, inciting revolution both against and within the First Order. It was Rose who had asked her to come, fearing attacks from all sides, but they were lucky enough to find a population itching for revolution.

When Rey found out why, she decided it was time to have another chat with Ben.

“Stolen children?” she exclaimed the next time the bond flared up.

“What?”

“I don’t know why I would’ve thought the First Order would stop under you. You steal children to train them.”

Ben’s face went through a multitude of emotions. “It’s the stormtrooper program.”

“I know what it is. It’s monstrous. You’re abducting children, taking them away from their families.”

“In war you have to be prepared to -”

“Don’t give me that,” snapped Rey. “I thought you might have some compassion with them.”

Ben looked stricken, but quickly recovered. “We don’t need it. Parents will be willing enough to hand over their children in exchange for a little money, they’re desperate enough.”

“You’re still separating parents from their children!”

“The Jedi did the same.”

“I don’t agree with them either.” She frowned. “But it’s still better than stealing them. Which is what you were doing. If you think you’d get recruits to your scumbag army anyway, why not stop?”

“ _Fine_ ,” said Ben immediately, looking confident that he had proven some point or other before realising a moment later what he had said and looking semi-regretful. Well, let him even _try_ and take it back.

* * *

The next day, still tired from her confrontation with Ben and the mission, she was rubbing at her face with her hands, feeling as tired as she ever had. It was hard not to limp, the ache in her left leg having reached a crescendo of badness. She staggered her way past the shrubbery to the little pit concealed from the base. It had a stone bench of sorts and thorny bushes you could stick your head in if things were going really badly.

It took her a moment to realise someone else was there in the shadows. When she turned to look at her figure, her eyes adjusted to the light enough to realise it was Poe.

He was sitting on the edge of the bench, face in shadow but eyes trained on her, holding a small flask. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“I can go, if you like,” said Rey. He didn’t exactly seem like he wanted company and… well. They hadn’t exactly spoken since that day.

“Nah, it’s fine,” said Poe. “I’ve already brooded enough for an evening.” He took a swig from his flask, then noticed Rey staring at it. “Don’t worry, it’s heavily diluted. Depressingly so, one could say.” He gave her a crooked smile.

“Right.”

“If you came here to do your own brooding, I can leave the spot to you. This hideout really lacks options on the quality brooding spots.”

Rey shook her head. “You can stay.” She sat on the flattened stone facing the bench and forced a slight smile at Poe, got one back, then proceeded to stare at the shrubbery.

What followed was a long silence in which Rey didn’t as much do productive thinking as turn over the same three lines of thought in her head. One was about the mission to the Outer Rim that had the potential to change their fortunes, if all the pep talks were to be believed. The other two, predictably, involved Ben. In fairness, one was about lightsaber construction logistics, but that inevitably led to thoughts of her conversations with Ben and the way he looked when he was reading the Jedi texts and how gentle he was when he fiddled with the tools and -

Well. A lot of thoughts were involved in that line of thought and they weren’t very focused on the lightsaber repairel.

The third thought was how Ben was still leading the First Order and a kind of forlorn _I wish it weren’t this way_. What would happen if they had to face on the battlefield again? Right now, that probably wouldn’t go too great for her. Admittedly her non-lightsaber fighting skills were at their peak at the moment, but there was only so much a staff and a blaster and whatever melee weapons the Resistance drummed up against a lightsaber wielded by a very powerful Force-user. Unless she managed to grab it from him - and… well, they’d seen how that had gone.

And what if she did manage to win again? What then? Would she run away again? What if he won? She couldn’t imagine him killing her, somehow - which was kind of crazy considering he’d shown himself perfectly willing to kill people close to him in the past. But she felt a certainty she couldn’t shake however hard she tried. Ben wouldn’t kill her. She doubted he’d even hurt her - not intentionally, anyway.

But a lot of other people were getting hurt.

Well, hopefully that mission to the Outer Rim would go well…

“Can I ask you something?”

Rey blinked and looked up, finding Poe’s gaze on her and his brow furrowed while the arm with the flask rested casually on his pulled up knee. There wasn’t exactly anything to say, except - “Yeah.”

“Just to be clear, this isn’t me wanting to judge you. And whatever your answer, you won’t - y’know - be kicked out of the Resistance or anything. Okay?”

Rey leant back and folded her arms, prepared to make a pretty good guess of where this was going. “That’s a bit of an ominous thing to lead on.”

“Just wanted to have that out there.” He pursed his lips, tilting his head to one side as he considered her. “So… you think Kylo Ren can be changed, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Is that in a _I want to be friends_ sort of way? Or…” He trailed off and gave her a meaningful look.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered him, trying to parse out what he was talking about. “Is that your question?”

“Well. The slightly more direct way of saying it is whether you have feelings for him.”

“Of course I have feelings for him, I want him to turn and give up the First Order -”

“Okay,” Poe interrupted, briefly closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He opened them again and nodded slowly. “Ugh. You’re really going to make me say it. Fine. Are you in love with Kylo Ren?”

Rey froze while her mind less froze and more started buzzing with a bunch of incoherent thoughts. The first one that approached coherence was a vague desire to throw Poe into the shrubbery. When she managed to operate her jaw muscles again, she opted for simplicity of phrasing. “What?”

Poe had been watching her, but now looked past her and sighed. He took a sip from his flask before muttering, “Brilliant.”

“Why would you think that?”

“A functional pair of eyeballs, for one thing.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Rey, again, I’m not judging you or -”

“You think I can only show compassion for someone if I’m in love with them? Really?”

“Obviously I don’t think that, but in this case -”

“Turning him would change the tide of this war. It’s not about my feelings.”

“Hm,” said Poe, his eyes narrowing in turn. “I notice you’re not denying it.”

Rey glared at him. “Anyone ever told you you’re a jerk?”

“Frequently, actually. Look, I’m not the only who’s wondering, though I’m guessing by your reaction I’m the first one to bring it up.”

“What, you’re talking about me behind my back?”

Poe snorted. “Not about your love life, I can assure you. Though I am about eighty percent sure Rose knows. Finn… well, he has a lot of personal baggage to work through as relates to the leader supreme, but on some level I think he must know.”

“Hold up. You’re making it sound like you know that there’s - that there’s something to _know_. Which you don’t know.”

“So there isn’t?”

Rey glared some more at him.

“As I keep saying, this isn’t me judging you.”

“Sure. Can’t imagine you’d be too pleased if - if I _did_ … have those feelings for… him.”

Poe shrugged. “I don’t know. It would complicate things, for sure. Then again, going by what you told us about Snoke’s death and everything since, any feelings you have must be reciprocated by the Supreme Leader. Which is the kind of thing that could be useful.”

“I won’t take advantage of our connection!” she blurted out, then scowled because that sounded _weird_.

“Yeah, I kind of knew you wouldn’t,” said Poe with a half-smile. “Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

The look she gave him made the jump from glaring to murderous.

“It’s a war,” said Poe, not phased in the slightest. “There’s a lot of lives at stake. I won’t apologise for doing whatever it takes.”

“Right. You’re ready to do anything to win. I’ve heard.”

The warmth drained out of his expression as she thought of all the whispers about the lives lost when she’d been on Ach-To. Who exactly was to blame for the sorry state the Resistance was in. For someone who was so adept at making people like him, he sure had a remarkable coldness in his eyes when he heard something he didn’t like. She looked back at him levelly, not about to be intimidated.

“There’s not a single Resistance member whose life I’d risk to save Kylo’s,” said Poe, voice quiet. He shook his head as he continued. “Not an engineer or pilot or bomber, not any of my friends or a new recruit I’d never met. That’s what loyalty means to me.”

She heard the implied dig in the last two words, felt the indignation rise in her and was tempted to snap back or storm off. But she also felt like she had something to prove, right now. Not to him, necessarily. But to herself. “What if that ends up costing you the war?”

Poe leaned back a little, shifting on the bench while giving her an odd look, like he was reconsidering her. For all his talk of not judging her, it sure felt like he was constantly updating his opinion of her. Trying to figure her out. He didn’t respond for a moment, but - even though his eyes were still cold - a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “If he turns and I could be absolutely certain he wasn’t going to hurt us, I wouldn’t turn him away.”

This wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. It was so entirely _unexpected_ that she struggled to know how to respond. “Why?”

“Because,” said Poe. Then sighed. “Because you’re right about how it could win us the war. Theoretically speaking. And if he really changed, I don’t think I could… deny him the chance to try to make up for everything he’s done.”

“You think he could?”

“I don’t know. But what’s the other alternative? Killing him right after he’s turned? That doesn’t solve anything. Doesn’t heal anyone.”

Rey was at a loss, dimly aware that it was now her who was having to do the reconsidering. “I agree.”

“Emphasis on me being _absolutely certain_ he could be trusted. And we’re not exactly there, are we?”

“And if we were?”

“We’d see. He tortured me. It hurt, quite a bit. He also forced his way into my mind, and I know you Jedi generally have a weird understanding of what exactly constitutes acceptable infringement of mental boundaries, but. That wasn’t fun.”

“I’m not a Jedi.”

“Yeah, well. Neither is he, I don’t think. Either way, I doubt we’ll be close any time soon. But I wouldn’t shoot him on sight, is all I’m saying.” He frowned at her. “Just to be clear, this isn’t me supporting your insanity.”

“Of course.”

“Rose seems to think you know what you’re doing. And her sister always had excellent judgement. So maybe I’m rooting for this whole seduction to the Light business. Just a little. Or at the very least I’m curious.”

Rey scowled again. “I’m not _seducing_ -”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Poe with a grin. “I’m curious about whether you’ll become _friends_.”

Rey rolled her eyes, tempted to throw something at him, like the rock she was sitting on. “This isn't exactly where I thought this conversation was going,” she said instead, deciding to be honest. “I heard you were considering kicking me out of the Resistance because of the force bond.”

“Is there no such thing as a private conversation around here?” asked Poe, raising his eyebrows in exasperation. “Yeah, my first thought was whether you could be leaking intel, intentionally or not. And I’m still not entirely convinced, even if I’ve cooled off a bit. Don’t misunderstand me. He’s the Resistance’s enemy, which means he’s my enemy. As things stand right now, that means I’ll do whatever I can to eliminate him. With or without your help. And if you do anything to harm the Resistance…” He shrugged. He didn’t need to finish.

They sat in silence for a bit. It was Rey who broke it.

“You’re not what I expected you to be.”

Poe looked at her, the beginnings of a smile on his face. “What did you expect me to be?”

Rey shrugged. She didn’t have a good answer for that, but she tried. “I thought you’d be set in your ways. I didn’t think you were the type to change your mind for some desert nobody.”

“Who says I changed my mind?” said Poe, one eyebrow raised. But he had, they both knew it. “You’re hardly a nobody, anyway. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t just disregard what you have to say.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“No, not really.” Poe tilted his head to one side. “For what it’s worth, all I knew about you was that you came from nowhere and were _very_ powerful. I figured you didn’t have skin in the game. But you’ve put some thought in all this and clearly you care. A lot.”

Rey nodded slowly, unexpectedly grateful at the… compliment? “Suppose we both don’t know each other very well.”

“I suppose we don’t. How come, anyway? You’re friends with some of my closest friends, we’ve been hanging around in the same Resistance hideouts for months. I was beginning to think you’re shy.”

“Because that’s the only reason someone wouldn’t want to talk to you?”

“Obviously,” he said, winking at her.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re always busy with leadership things.”

The smile stayed fixed in place, but Rey noticed how his eyes weren’t quite as merry any more. “Leadership things. Of course.”

“Is that why you’ve been brooding here?”

Poe gave her a long look, then shrugged. “It’s been a lot of new responsibilities. I’m used to being a pilot, making the thing go boom and then flying off. Apparently I need a different skill-set now.” He sighed. “What we do for the cause, am I right?”

Rey hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “What we do for the cause.”

They sat in silence for another few minutes, then Poe stood up, groaning as his back made cracking sounds. Rey winced.

“I’ll leave you to the brooding now,” said Poe. “I think I’ve had my fair share for today. And, just to reiterate, I was being serious about the whole being curious about Kylo situation. All in all, I’d prefer not to be in the dark.”

A pause. “I’ll try.”

Poe sighed in an overly dramatic way. “Don’t we all. Well then, thanks for the nice chat. Would love to do it again. Maybe we should’ve done some team-building exercises, gone on a few missions. I’d get to blow things up again, which would be perfect.”

Rey half-smiled. “We might tire of each other pretty fast.”

“Probably,” said Poe. “Still, explosions. Take care, Rey.”

“See you.”

He turned and clambered out of the pit. Rey watched him go. It was a lot more quiet when he was gone and she had plenty of brooding time to mull over the conversation. It was odd, but their talk had helped. It gave her hope. Maybe there was a way to not have to give up either Ben or the Resistance. Maybe they could figure it all out.

* * *

Rey fell asleep with one of the books lying on her nose again, which led to the unpleasant experience of waking up, not seeing anything, having something heavy covering her face, dust in her nose and immediately sneezing into the ancient Jedi text, propelling the book a millimetre up before it thumped back on her face. She groaned as she peeled the book off her face, then sat up and looked down at it, bleary mind slowly rolling back into the motion.

She stared down at it. Then groaned. Scrunching up her face and painfully aware of what anyone watching her would think, she took her blanket and rubbed it against the pages, trying to get rid off the worst of the assorted liquid and mucus she had left behind. She wondered how many past Jedi had spit all over the sacred texts they were studying. It wasn’t the kind of thing she would’ve cared about once upon a time but now…

Rey looked around, half-heartedly hoping there weren’t any Force ghosts or enemies-slash-collaborators linked through the Force around. She bit her lip as she considered the book, fairly sure she’d gotten rid of the worst of it. Oh well.

She was still wiping at it when -

“Rey?”

She looked up, shoved the book behind her. He couldn't have been watching her too long. Rey scowled at him. “What is it?”

Ben stared at her for a moment. Then - “I found the crystal cave,” said Ben.

“You did?” exclaimed Rey, jumping up in excitement. “Where?”

“I’ll tell you the coordinates. But, Rey, it probably only makes sense to go when you have everything else together. That’s how we did it, it was all ready together.”

“Then let’s get to it,” said Rey, flooded with a new enthusiasm that made her forget to ask _how_ exactly Ben had made this discovery. They pulled up the plans, Rey determined to make final calls on as many design details as she possibly could. She was getting tired of waiting.

“I want it to have a different switch.”

“What,” said Ben, “to ignite the blade?”

“Yup.”

“What kind?”

Rey thought. “Something that’s easier to use. If it rotates…”

“Okay,” said Ben. “I think I can find some options.”

And he did, quickly compiling research from within the Jedi texts and other sources, giving her as close to definitive range of options to her as he could.

Rey made sure to critique all aspects of lightsaber design she chose to adapt. And Ben critiqued even more. But eventually, they made all their choices, figured out how to get every part. They were almost there.

* * *

Rose helped her get most of the hilt pieces together. Since the actual assembling of the lightsaber would fall to them, it would be a fair amount of work to put all the tiny components together. But Rose remained eager to help and Rey couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t excited at the prospect of building something that was hers. Just hers.

“You should talk to Finn,” said Rose to her when they were inspecting the newly arrived screws. Those were pretty much the last of the components, which meant Rey was preparing her trip to the cave.

“What?”

“I know you barely have. But… it’s not been easy on him. Progress isn’t as fast as we’d like it to be. And it bothers him that he can’t even talk to you about it, I can tell.”

“He didn’t even tell me for ages about his plans.”

Rose shrugged. “We’re fighting a war, we can’t constantly keep each other a hundred percent updated. But he’s had to fight other Resistance members left and right, who’ve been saying… They’ve been saying all stormtroopers deserve death. Might as well go for maximum casualties, every hit the First Order takes…”

Rey’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s bad. There’s people who aren’t happy about this whole innocent stormtroopers angle Finn’s been taking. He shouted at one that he hadn’t even been on Crait, how could the guy even think he had the right to have an opinion…”

“Oh,” said Rey, who had been entirely unaware of this little war raging within the Resistance. She frowned at Rose, trying not to feel too guilty about just how little attention she was paying to her friends and their plights, what with… everything.

“Just try to talk to him,” said Rose. “At some point you’ll have to. Maybe it won’t go well but… you’ll get there eventually.”

Rey wished she had that kind of conviction.

Her uncertainty, however, didn’t stop her from following Rose’s advice and taking the next opportunity she had to seek out Finn.

“I don’t want to fight,” said Rey in way of greeting.

Finn raised his eyebrows. “Neither do I. Is there something you’re planning to fight about?”

“No,” said Rey. “That’s why I said it. Just to make it clear.” She sat down next to Finn, feet dangling over the edge he was sitting at. It was a long way down, but the horizon was pink and orange and a stunning contrast to the blue leaved-trees shuddering in the wind. “It’s a beautiful view.”

Finn hummed in agreement. “So if you’re not here for a fight, anything in particular you’re after?”

“I’m here for… you,” Rey began awkwardly. “I didn’t even realise how hard it must be. Trying to figure out - with the stormtroopers.”

“It’s hard to convince the others to have compassion for them,” said Finn, staring off into the distance.

Rey nodded.

“Which is obviously not the same to Kylo.”

“Finn -”

“What if some stormtrooper manages to get in a lucky blast and kill him? You think that’d be wrong?”

“It’s not that easy.”

Finn let out a bitter laugh. “I think it’s exactly that easy.” His face was scrunched up in an anger barely-held back. Maybe _he’d_ just been waiting for an opportunity. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. The Force connecting the two of you isn’t even your fault.”

“ _That’s_ exactly why I didn’t,” said Rey, doing her best to keep her own anger at bay. “You think it has to be something _bad_.”

“I guess I do,” said Finn. “Because I’ve met him and I know who he is. And I know what he did to his dad and Poe and me and all of his other victims. So I guess I wish my best friend didn’t have some mystical connection with him she’s apparently willing to lie about. Those people took my childhood away and almost did the same with my life and you - what? Want to make goody goody with them?”

“I said I didn’t want to start a fight,” spat Rey, fists clenching and a burn of anger rolling through her, grabbing at her gut and making her desperate for a way to release it. Which was not ideal given that it was just her and Finn sitting on top of a long drop. She focused her energy on a distant horizon, because she could hardly pull down the sky. Right?

“If me being honest about what I think is going to start a fight,” said Finn, “then I guess you’re right about having to lie to me. But I’m not sure if that’s much of a friendship.”

“That’s not why I’m here. It’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“You get to decide that, do you?”

“That’s not what I meant! But Rose said the stuff with the stormtroopers is - is hard for you -”

“Those were her words, were they?”

“I’m not exactly quoting her! So I’m here to support you like friends are meant to, without you throwing everything -”

“That’s all nice and good if we’re pretending like these things are super separate and don’t relate at all to each other! But they do! You know who could put an end to the stormtrooper programme right now?”

“It’s not -”

“Don’t tell me it’s not that easy. Don’t tell me you need to make that journey for him again and again because he couldn’t just make it better himself. If he care so much about you maybe he should choose you over his power trip, but he isn’t, is he? Don’t tell me about the hardship of switching sides because I’ve been there, done that and I didn’t have a nice Jedi girl defending me every step of the way.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Don’t give me that, it’s -”

“Stop telling me what I can and cannot do.”

“- not the same, you know it -”

“So what when your stormtroopers have already killed? Because they have, they’ve shot at your new friends and not all of them are -”

“That is _not_ the same -”

“- lucky enough to have no blood on their hands -”

“- as someone _leading_ the First Order and all his crimes -”

“- and how about everyone in the Resistance if the stormtroopers are abducted -”

“ _Lucky_ _enough_? I _chose_ not to kill anyone, how can you -”

“- as children, because _you’ve_ killed them too, haven’t you? So what does that make you?”

She stopped sharp as Finn’s face contracted in horror and shock.

“How can you - how can you -” he repeated, voice dropped to nearly a whisper.

“I’m not saying it’s the same,” said Rey in a rush. “Just - just we can’t - if we keep doing the same stuff, and we think we can just slaughter them all everything will be fine, it won’t be fine, right? We both agree on that, right?”

“I’m starting to think we don’t think we agree on anything.” Finn clambered to his feet and Rey followed him quickly, trying to stave off his anger and redirect this conversation into something less horrible. By the look on Fnn’s face, he was having none of it.

“It’s a war,” said Rey. “And the Force, it - it’s not a gift like people think. He’s been burdened with this responsibility all his life. It’s not fair that one person turning determines the flow of an entire war, flips the fate of an entire galaxy. But that’s how it is.”

“Then I can’t understand all this Force stuff,” said Finn.

“That’s not what I -”

“And I don’t even want to. Leave it, Rey. I have stuff I need to do.” He gave her a sad smile, almost worse than his anger. “Let’s continue this another time.” Without another word, he stormed off.

* * *

When Rey next saw Ben, he looked about as guilty as she felt. “What is it?” she asked immediately.

“There was something I didn’t tell you. But… things are changing. And you need to know.”

“Know what?”

Ben was standing in front of her, stiffer than he’d been in a while, jaw clenched as he considered her. “Rey,” he began. “You should know. I sent the Knights of Ren to find it. They know where it is now.” A pause. “I’ve ordered them to stay away. But…” His lip quivered. “They must have tried hard to keep it hidden. I don’t know how many knew. I don’t know how Luke knew. He didn’t even trust us with the location.”

And now a bunch of dark-side force-sensitives knew where it was. That was going to be an issue she’d have to deal with sooner or later. Not that she knew how or…

“Couldn’t you have sent someone else to find it?” asked Rey, letting reproach slip into her voice.

“It’s not easy to find. I don’t think anyone else would’ve had a hope.”

“You might have.”

“I have to lead the First Order.”

Rey glared at him. “Do you? Really?”

He didn’t answer.

“This had better not be a trick.”

“I wouldn’t ambush you,” said Ben evenly, meeting her gaze. Reminding her of the last time she had sought out a location of meaning to the Force.

He had a point, but she still glared at him because after all _he_ was leading the First Order. Who were evil. So there was only so much he could complain. “Hope you don’t get up to anything while I’m gone,” she said, still glaring.

“Apart from leading the First Order?”

“You could give that a rest too.”

They shared a long look, the conflict in Ben more obvious than it had been in a while. His wet eyes gazed imploringly at her, as if he still wanted to turn her to his side. Or maybe…

Rey turned her right hand so the palm was facing upwards, holding it out a little in front of her. “You could make it stop.”

He didn’t move. She remained there, waiting - then remembered something he’d said.

“Why are you only telling me this now? What’s changing about the knights?”

Ben didn’t answer. The connection flickered and faded, and Rey couldn’t help but feel like it was deliberate on Ben’s part.

* * *

Not half an hour later, Rose burst in.

“Kylo’s not here?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Really really not here? He definitely can’t hear us?”

Rey frowned. “I _said_ so, didn’t I -”

“I have to check!” said Rose breathlessly. “There’s something I need to tell you and… sorry but the leader of the First Order really can’t hear it. We’re going on a mission. To the academy where they train stormtroopers. We’re going to free the kids. We’ve been working on it for a while.” Rose took a deep breath. “And you should know. What do you think?”

“Am I on this mission?”

“No,” said Rose.

Rey frowned. “Shouldn’t I come?”

Rose shook her head.

“Is this about Ben? You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not that exactly. But… but they expect us to take you for such a big mission. If you’re going to travel to the crystal…” Rose bit at her lip. “They won’t expect it.”

“Like a distraction,” said Rey, feeling numb. She didn’t really know how to react to that - not sure if they were doing the right thing or she was doing the wrong thing or… “Rose. I don’t want to trick him. I’m not going to.”

“No,” said Rose. “You won’t. You’re going to get the crystal. But I didn’t want you to go without knowing that there was something else going on and that we’re essentially using you as cover. Finn agreed.”

“He did?” asked Rey, not sure how to feel about that. “Then why didn’t he tell me himself?”

Rose sighed. “He doesn’t want to admit that he’s opposed to tricking Kylo Ren. You have to give him time, but he’s getting there. Really. Wherever _there_ is.”

“Uh huh,” said Rey. “Hope this isn’t going to become a habit, me going off to do lightsaber things while you try to one-up Ben.”

“Maybe if you stop breaking lightsabers we can talk,” said Rose dryly. “Also, we’re not one-upping him. _Hopefully_ we won’t get anywhere near him. Just quick in-out mission, you know?”

“I’m sure they won’t mind losing their entire next generation of soldiers.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Hilarious. Look, I’m just here to check. Are you good to go?”

Rey nodded.

“Then let’s do this.”

* * *

Navigation wasn’t made any easier by the heavy snow that whirled around the ship as it made its descent. It landed softly in the deep snow, Rey doing her usual scans while it settled in. Not much life here. Ben had told her she couldn’t land any closer than this but… she wasn’t looking forward to the walk.

Rey clenched her fists and took a deep breath before grabbing the thick coat she had requisitioned and putting it on. She still wasn’t used to layers that heavy, nor was she used to these big, clunky boots she had gotten for the occasion. It was still the dead of night, which Ben had assured her was crucial. Get there with enough time to be at the cave for dawn, when she could go inside and find her crystal.

 _Your crystal_.

She grabbed her blaster and attached her staff to the back of her coat where it awkwardly hung, ready for any emergencies. Well, no point in wasting any more time. She should go.

The moment she left the ship, the harsh wind and snowflakes slapped against her, making her cheeks sting with the sudden loss of warm and causing intense shivers to roll through her body. She bared her teeth as she grabbed the binoculars, trying to make out the cliff she _knew_ had to be there in the hazy green-tint.

It was hard going - the weather was even worse than what Ben had described. She stumbled forward, her feet sinking deep in the snow as the wind almost made her fall over. And it was hard to see anything, even the tall mass she was approaching. Despite Ben’s assurances, she began to doubt that there was even anything there - before the binoculars focused and she began seeing the definite outline. The outline became clearer and clearer, becoming sharp edges of stone extending into the sky, closer and closer and taller and taller as she looked up only to get a fistful of snow in her eyes.

Nothing around here looked like an entry. What had Ben said? She needed the Force to guide her. According to him, it had taken all of their efforts to open the way. And sure, they were young - but what hope did she have? What if she stood in front of the cliff, trying and trying but failing to progress any further, until eventually the snow claimed her as its own and froze her in place?

Rey took a deep, icy breath. Even now, she could feel the Force surrounding her. It was particularly strong, here, and it helped her find a path where there was none, as the cliff came closer and became real and filled her vision. She was almost there now, almost close enough to touch it. Something made her look down and she saw she was standing on a circle, filled with symbols she vaguely recognised from the texts but not enough to make meaning of. This was it. This was where she needed to open her path, where she needed to connect to the Force.

“Ben,” she whispered into thin air. “Ben. Are you there?”

Nothing.

Rey reached out her hand, gloved fingers reaching out into the air, and breathed out, her breath crystallising in the air and brushing back into her face just as she closed her eyes, letting the darkness enclose her. She hadn’t connected to him for her entire journey or the preparations she had completed before hand, so if anything the bond should be getting a little tetchy. Trying to get the bond to open was still… very hit and miss. But if she could…

“Ben.”

She breathed in, breathed out, sent a silent request for help. Not out of desperation. Not even out of necessity. More… more having him here. Letting the Force guide not just her way, but his.

“Ben.”

As his presence stirred against her, she inhaled sharply, opening her eyes. She couldn’t see him, not here, not with the snow beating against her - but it was enough. Rey planted her feet in the middle of the circle and stretched out her hand towards the cliff. It was always easiest to open herself to the Force when Ben was there. She pulled at the cliff and could feel Ben pulling beside her. And the stones gave, rearranging themselves into an entrance.

“Thank you,” she whispered and as she stepped inside, his presence dissipated.

It was a dark space, overgrown with moss and weeds that clung to cracked stone columns and artifices, including what looked like a dilapidated fountain whose water had long since dried up. The snow crept through between the cracks and crevices, melting by the time it reached the stone floor she walked across and forming a soggy layer of slime. Rey walked towards the entrance proper of the cave, illuminated by streaks of dawn light that had made their way into the place. There was nothing blocking her path into the dark interior.

She took a breath and stepped inside.

* * *

The icy columns stretched out before her as she walked along the hallway, her footsteps ringing out. There was barely enough light to see in and she had to rely almost entirely on her other senses, trying to trust the Force to guide her. Rey could hear her own heart beating, thudding in her chest as she turned from side to side, continuing onwards into the depth of the cave. She couldn’t feel Ben any more. Once again, she was alone.

Rey wandered down one passageway after the other. She didn’t feel like she knew where she was going, like there was any crystal _calling_ to her or… or even any crystal, anywhere. There were… whispers, nothing distinct and as mysterious to her as ever. Noises she couldn’t quite make out, her feet sliding over the iciest parts of the floor as the cold air pressed against her. She entered a small cavern with multiple pathways to go down. Rey paused. She had the distinct impression she was getting lost.

She took a breath, eyes passing from one pathway to the next. One of them had to _feel_ right, didn’t it? One of the crystals had to be hers, right?

Had Ben once been where he stood? Had he been here with his fellow Jedi, facing all these different ways to go? He might have been her age at the time, or maybe he would’ve been a lot younger. Had he felt as lost as she did? Or had he been able to trust himself?

As she exhaled and her breath blossomed out, she felt a shimmer in the Force. In the cavern around her she could very nearly see shadows, imprints in the Force left by the last lifeforms that had made it here. She saw them huddled together, waving around their arms, gesturing at one door to the next. Then they parted, splitting up. Two went one way, two the other. Only a single shadow went along the third path.

It was just an instinct. But it was enough. She followed the single shadow and made her way deeper into the caves.

The corridor she was walking along became ever narrower, with more and more twists that made her feel like she was going in circles at several points. Soon enough she noticed how much more fragile the ground under her feet was growing, the ice cracking with every step. She couldn’t do anything but continue even as she felt water slosh below the thin ice and heard more and more creaks, however light her steps were, however carefully she tread, however -

The ice broke. Everything went black and wet around her as stuff flew in her eyes and she felt wet substances brush her cheeks. She threw her hands around, feeling herself fall even as she saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but pain and confusion. When her surroundings steadied, she found herself trapped in a sphere of ice. Rey looked up and around her, already knowing there was no escape. She struck against the ice - it was solid and hard. Without the fear of bolts rebounding at her, she might’ve tried using her blaster. All she had was her staff and her fists. She hit the ice again, felt nothing but pain in her knuckles.

She was trapped. And she was so _angry_. Furious at the cave for luring her this far in with the promise of a crystal of her very own, only to trap her in a ball of ice with no escape. Angry that she’d had to come here in the first place rather than just ordering a crystal like she’d done with every other damn part, instead choosing to follow traditions laid out by long dead Jedi. Angry that she was here alone. She gripped her staff tight, baring her teeth and lashing out against the wall. _Still_ nothing. Like hell this would be her end. She _refused_ to be trapped here.

Rey growled, fury flooding her thoughts as she whirled around with her staff, giving little care to the jacket constricting her movements. She screamed as she struck against the ice again and again and again, slashing and jabbing and striking in every direction, from every angle, the staff barely making a dent as she exerted her already tired body, running off pure anger and hatred at the stupid ice, this stupid cave and the stupid tests Jedi set each other. She lashed out with a yell, feeling the staff sink in her ice, sheer anger making the ball cave to her will - and she didn’t stop, again, again, again, feeling the ice strain against her but ultimately yield as she spun her staff and struck it one last time.

The ice shattered around her and she bowed down her head instinctively as shards pattered down onto her back and her hair and some of them scratched through her hair into her head and her neck, leaving sharp, stinging pain in their wake. She hissed through her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as unbidden tears came to her and she hugged the staff against her. Once the ice had finished falling, she slowly unfurled, opening her eyes to look ahead. And there, glowing in the dark, humming in her ears, was her crystal.It was smaller than she would have thought, she reflected as she looked down at her palm where it rested. Rey had quickly left the cave again, the way out considerably easier to find for some reason. She was pretty sure the one she’d fixed hadn’t been this small. It didn’t matter, she had what she came for. Rey placed it carefully in her satchel, steeling herself for the gruelling trek through the snow she had ahead of her. Well, no matter. She had succeeded. And very soon, she would have a lightsaber to call her own.

* * *

It was smaller than she would have thought, she reflected as she looked down at her palm where it rested. Rey had quickly left the cave again, the way out considerably easier to find for some reason. She was pretty sure the one she’d fixed hadn’t been this small. It didn’t matter, she had what she came for. Rey placed it carefully in her satchel, steeling herself for the gruelling trek through the snow she had ahead of her. Well, no matter. She had succeeded. And very soon, she would have a lightsaber to call her own.

* * *

Quick in-out it had been for her, at least - she thought as she held her new kyber crystal in her hand. It was while she was sitting in her shop as the force bond flared once more. And she could see him there, his face blank but unmistakably taught, in full Supreme Leader-mode, surrounded by various subordinates who were either rushing around or watching him fearfully.

This wasn’t Ben. This was Kylo Ren.

There was something hard about his gaze, yet even though she knew not to stress their force bond, knowing instinctively it wouldn’t be a good idea to make him aware of her presence, she could see beyond his masked face and perceive… uncertainty. Conflict.

Fear.

“- successfully infiltrated the station and have managed to shut off all communications,” a pasty-faced subordinate was saying.

“We only have one option,” another, older, man said. “If we can’t take back that academy then we need to make sure none of their scum is getting out of there. We need to bomb the place to -”

Ben raised a single hand, cutting off the man without even looking at him. He really did look like Kylo Ren here, in such casual command, completely familiar with the ways of power and not unwilling to use it. Rey felt a shudder of horror and considered trying to reach out to him, beg him to not do something he could never take back and…. and Rose and Finn would be down there, and all the children and…

It was an instinct, a weird tug in the Force that stopped her from doing so. Something telling her to wait. And trust.

“Can we send ground troops?” asked Kylo, his low voice rumbling through the room. “Retake it with a mass show of force?”

The first subordinate cleared his throat, and when he spoke there was something distinctly nervous about him. “We do not have enough troops in the sector,” he said. “They’ve taken over all the strategic access point, giving them the time they’ll need to board all of them on shuttles.”

“Why are they doing this?” asked a third stranger with a frown. “This seems a massive waste of resources for a highly risky stratagem.”

“It’s working,” muttered a brave fourth soul from behind the others.

“Sentimentality,” said the older man. “Plain and simple. We need to show them what happens when they give into such weaker impulses and -”

“Jikstrin,” said Kylo, his voice not angry but somehow all the more terrifying for it.

The man did his best to look unphased. “Yes, Supreme Leader?”

“Get out,” said Kylo evenly, not even deigning to look at him. “If I hear another word from you, a cleaning droid will be forced to scrape you from the ceiling later.”

As threats went, it was an effective one. The man opened his mouth, then mulled Kylo’s words, then clearly decided he wanted to remain alive and scurried away. Everyone who had been paying attention to Kylo seemed increasingly interested in studying the floor instead.

Rey knew, which must mean that Ben knew too, that every second he was wasting was being used by the Resistance to get those kids out of there. Abducted children, bought children and everything in between… Ben at had no point guaranteed that he would stop the stormtrooper programme entirely, however much distaste he spoke of it with.

Because no one dared meet his gaze, for a moment Kylo Ren could compose his face in seeming privacy, not aware of the shadow in the room watching him. His lip quivered and he blinked repeatedly, faced with a new choice. The natural choice, what the First Order and Hux and Snoke would do, was to bomb the place away. Adverse consequences be damned, certainly no moral considerations in the game - but it would send a message of what would happen at even the slightest of defiance towards the First Order. That was what had happened to the Hosnian System, after all. It was the choice _they_ were all expecting, including that old man who had pushed Kylo. Ruthlessness. Acceptance of nothing less than absolute power.

Rey had to force herself to remain calm, breathing in and out one deep breath at a time to stop herself from panicking, to stop the fluctuations in her emotions from alerting Ben to her presence. But it was _hard_ because… If he really did this, if he murdered all those children just because he _could_ , because the Resistance had made some sort of mistake alerting them to their presence, because they were taking a little too much and this was Ben’s side, this was Kylo Ren who had been prepared to take charge of that monstrous group in the interest of change and reform, whatever the cost… What then? He knew she wasn’t there, he knew she’d been out hunting crystals, he wouldn't even lose her if that still mattered to him. She hadn’t distracted him at all. And now she was doing nothing apart from watching. Watch as he hesitated, taking far too long, no doubt aware of the doubt that was blossoming in the room, as they both felt the seconds tick past one after the other…

When Ben spoke, it was so soft and cracked that it barely fit to the man saying it. “Disengage.”

There were numerous sharp inhales in the room, nervous glances, even frowns at Kylo.

“Sir -”

“I said _disengage_ ,” Kylo repeated, baring his teeth, the facade back in place as he glowered around the room.

“We should let them go?”

“I refuse to countenance unnecessary losses,” said Kylo, lip curling. “The First Order under my command will not allow _waste_. And we cannot afford to lose an entire cohort of trainees. If you disagree, you may recall my remarks to Jikstrin a few minutes ago.” Kylo took a small step forwards, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the maps. “Hang back. Once they clear the academy, board their vehicles, track them, _find them_. I hope I don’t have to explain how seriously I take this objective, and how… harshly I will judge your successes or failures.”

The connection ended. But she had seen Ben’s choice. That was what she needed to know.

* * *

The trip back felt a lot longer than it probably was. She didn’t speak to Ben, barely even sensed him in the Force except for flashes of emotion - distress, uneasiness… so much conflict.

Occasionally, she allowed herself to dream that this was where things would change. That they had reached some kind of a turning point. She stared at the blank expanse of space, trying to count stars that were barely glimmers in the distance, thinking of Ben. Picturing him.

Rey was walking back to the cabin that constituted her current residence, swinging her satchel with all the lightsaber components she’d been working on to and fro.

She’d sometimes felt emotions through the bond, or thought she had, anyway, not always able to separate pangs of loneliness or pain or sadness from her own. Even occasionally when she lay down to sleep orwas doing some menial task, the heat of battle where she didn’t expect it.

Not like this, though. Not shock hitting her like a brick wall, before briefly transforming into terror and then into something else entirely.

Pain.

She straightened, peering around the hallway as if she could find him there, willing the bond into existence. Her heartbeat accelerated as she reached out, bringing her hand up, pulling on something invisible, as if -

Why was her heart beating so fast? Why couldn’t she slow her breathing? What was this clammy feeling that had enveloped her, making it impossible to concentrate?

It wasn’t just his pain blinding her. It was her terror. She let out a little gasp as she felt something hot and painful in her leg - although it wasn’t her leg.

Something was very wrong.

Something with Ben.

Her enemy.

Who was leading the First Order.

The enemy of the Resistance.

What if - what if he was fighting them… Shouldn’t she…

And in that moment, Rey realised that she didn’t care.

She was still standing in the happily deserted corridor as she snarled into thin air, all hope of calming herself and reaching for the Force in a meditative state abandoned as she focused instead on the pain and the terror, hers and Ben’s mixing into one and calling for her.

In the confusion she saw flashes of the truth, bits of the other side hitting her.

 _A trap_.

His knights, his motley crew.

The force bond lit up and she could _see_ Ben, clear and solid and facing her, panting and looking like he was close to collapsing as he held the saberstaff aloft. His eyes widened when he saw Rey, filled with both relief and fear in turn. Her mouth opened of its own volition, mouthing a silent word - _Ben._ His eyes begged her to leave, to dismiss the force bond. To not see any of this.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, she held out her hand.

He barely hesitated, but given his steadily advancing foes it felt like forever. But in that moment of clarity between them, he knew what she wanted, twisting the middle of the staff around and decoupling the two halves. Then he threw one hilt to her.

She caught it and spun around. Somehow, she knew where the knights were, like shadows in the Force that had become almost tangible to her. The blade had barely been ignited before it buried itself into an unlucky foe - they had never stood a chance against an opponent who had not even been there seconds before. When she stepped up to Ben and he spun around to once again stand back to back with her, the knights became clearer in her vision and she could sense they saw her too, by the way some stepped back and one gasped and one swore and all held their weapons a little higher. Well, that was fine. She could handle herself.

Her foot slid sideways on the rocky ground as a knight charged and the half-saber came up to meet him. His weapon emitted sparks as it met her blade and as they locked she pushed him back, pulling the blade forward and backwards, before having to free one hand to throw back one of the other knights with a furious yell. As the knight she was fighting pressed harder with a brief advantage, she dropped to the ground, allowing his momentum to almost topple him before twisting and pushing her back against his knees. He fell over her and then met a lightsaber to the back.

One down. The smell of something burning filled her throat and then her lungs, smoke obscuring her vision of surroundings that weren’t quite distinct to her. And as Ben fought next to her, it wasn’t like last time, when he’d been full of life and energy. She charged from the side at the knight he was fighting, dispatching of him with a slash to the side while Ben was distracting, taking in his wounded leg and ashen face with worry and then a hint of panic at the thought that this bond could fade at any moment, cutting her off -

Rey barely got her blade around in time to fend off a new knight who had taken the opportunity to attack from behind and she briefly had to trust Ben to take care of himself. Their weapons clashed repeatedly, her fury and desperation matched by his obvious skill as two more knights approached from either side. She felt the Force connect her to Ben’s environment with a rush, the small rocks she was stepping on matched by larger rocks in the terrain, some kind of desert maybe… Something on fire, somewhere to her left, but that didn’t matter now. Rey reached out and _pulled_ , jumping to the left and almost finishing the knight on that side as the large rock rolled fell on the knight in the middle. She could’ve finished her new opponent off but for the worry of unintentionally harming Ben, her quick motion with the hand to stop the rock in mid-motion -

The knight got a hit in, some kind of electric blade ripping into her hip and making her gasp from the blinding hot pain.

She yanked with the Force at the energy core in the knight’s weapon, tearing it to and fro and then clenching her fist to crush it, feeling her rage pour into it and gritting her teeth. And then the core of the weapon exploded, throwing the knight far back and causing the valley to briefly light up

She spun around, driven by a desperate ferocity, the fear that the bond might collapse at any moment and she’d leave him to fend for himself, alone.But they had finished all of them off, except -

It was hard to tell in the smoke, but she could sense Ben’s surroundings begin to meld into her own, and then the corridor truly faded, replaced by dust and rocks.

Ben had been injured in the crash of his ship… She knew that much from his confused thoughts and memories, and as she spun around to find their remaining foes she knew that there must have been another ship, that of Kylo Ren’s knights. And now the other ship was…

“No!” yelled Rey, but it was too late. The one remaining knight had fired up the engine and had clearly decided to make a run for it, not even brave enough to fire a few rounds at them or something. Rey considered trying to halt the ship, but she hadn’t the time and nowhere near the energy needed. At most she’d manage to crash the damn thing, which wouldn’t help them.

Right now she had a bigger problem.

* * *

He was alive, which was something. Maybe even conscious, even though his eyes were shut. He’d sunk to the ground right next to one of his former comrades, slumped back against a rock that couldn’t make for a comfortable stool. Rey hobbled over to him. That leg would need assistance, and fast. She turned around sharply and made her satchel fly over to her. A moment later a bacta patch was in her hand and she was ripping at his already torn trousers, allowing her to slap it onto the long gash on his leg. Gently slap it on, anyway. He let out a moan at the contact as her hands carefully roamed over him, trying to find out whether there were any other wounds that required her immediate attention.

His eyelids fluttered for a moment before his eyes opened, needing time to focus on her. His lips parted as confusion registered in his features, before tears welled up in his eyes and then trickled down his dirty cheeks. “Rey?” he rasped, sounding like his lungs had been filled by the rocks all around him. There was probably a fair amount of dust in him by this point. “How - how are you still here?”

Rey looked around at the entirely solid surroundings. “I don’t know.”

She looked over at his ship, which was very much on fire. “One moment,” she said, running over in the hope of saving… something.

Rey was good at fixing things, but she wasn’t a miracle worker. And it had been burning for a while now so it had really gotten through a lot of the vital bits. The engine, for one.

She stood staring at the wreckage for a moment, letting the horror really seep in. She was definitely _here_. Ben had actually pulled her through, or she had pulled herself through, or… Either way, here she was. Here they were.

Rey walked back over to Ben. “Anyone else after us?”

Ben shook his head, limply - then added with effort, “Not that I know of.”

“Then we get cover and - and make sure you don’t bleed out.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“We still need cover. To reassess.”

Ben frowned but clearly wasn’t in much of a state to argue.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Rey said. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She jogged off, more unwilling than she’d like to admit to leave him alone for any period of time. The sun had set fast on this unknown planet and even given the exertions she had just been through, she felt a chill of fast dropping temperatures. The terrain was rocky, with barely any shrubbery to speak of and no immediately visible wildlife, though she was sure she could sense things crawling around in the ground. The lifelessness reminded her of Jakku in that regard, but on this colder planet the lack of any kind of viable firewood was worrying. Ben would need heat.Would fire attract unwelcome guests or keep them away? And what of sustenance? She had some water in her pack and a few ration packs she never went without, but that wouldn’t last long either.

Shelter first.

At the edge of the valley, close to a steep incline that might lead upwards and out was a tall hollow, carved into the side of the valley. She stepped into it and it extended quite far back, the stone gradually sloping downwards. It was probably the best shelter she’d find, and crucially it wasn’t too far away from where Ben was waiting for her.

Kriff, she had to get back to him.

* * *

“There’s - there’s a cave, I think,” she said. “Can you walk?”

Ben nodded, but when he took his first step he almost fell. Rey immediately reached out to steady him and as he adjusted she slid under his arm, her right arm on his back, allowing him to lean on her. He didn’t protest so they slowly made their way towards the cave. He was so big and warm despite the encroaching cold. Even with his ragged breathing and their gradual progress, the wounds encumbering him and the worries taunting her, there was something so bizarre about how _close_ he was, how present and real and… and wonderful it felt for her to feel so much of him after all this time. Here, they didn’t need the Force to connect them - which was good because Rey hardly sensed its presence - here there was just the two of them, pressed together.

When she sat him down in the cave, she did a proper sweep of her surroundings.

Something smelled bad. She came across the sight of a lovely carcass of some kind of long, thin bird in the corner, several days old. “Wonderful,” Rey muttered. Well, they didn’t have the energy to find another cave, so horrible smell it was. She’d been around worse. She wrinkled her nose and grabbed the dead thing, walked over to the cave entrance and threw it out.

Rey scrunched up her face as she wiped her hands on her trousers. Then headed back to Ben.

* * *

“I’m fine,” said Ben, taking a deep gulp of a breath and noticeably gritting his teeth. “I’m not that injured. Just… drained.”

That was a lie if ever she’d heard one, but she wasn’t about to start an argument with him now. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said dryly and quickly took stock of the stuff she had in her satchel. It wasn’t exactly promising. Mostly lightsaber pieces, the crystal, some water and food, barely anything that served as medical supplies and nothing that could function as a radio. She grabbed a painkiller and a swab before kneeling next to Ben. “I need to take another look,” she said with a gesture at his thigh, almost apologetically.

He swallowed, then nodded.

Back in the panic of a few minutes ago, she had barely even noticed ripping the fabric apart and how much of his skin she had exposed, but now she shivered as she held ripped trouser fabric away. There were angry red scorch marks that reached well beyond the edges of the bacta patch, visible even in the near-vanished sunlight. She gently cleaned the area with a swab, feeling him wince at every touch.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

He remained still, and it was all so silent that she could hear his heartbeat, feel the steady beat reverberate through her. Crouching over him, her elbow was almost resting against his chest and she could feel his breath bouncing against her hair as she finished disinfecting the entire region as well as she could. When she raised her head to offer him the painkiller, she noticed how close their faces were. Mere inches apart as the last ray of sunshine lit up his nose and disappeared by the other side of his face, yet still twinkling in his wet eyes that gazed at her. She was so close she could….

Rey held up the painkiller. “Here,” she said.

His shoulders slumped a little, but he accepted it with a weary engloved fingertips that pressed briefly against her skin. She shivered and quickly backed away, hurrying to get him a small chewy ration bar and the flask of water.

“Rey, I -”

“Drink this.”

He looked at the flask, then back at her again, eyes hooded under sinking eyelids, his skin shining with a pallor she didn’t like at all. “You need -”

“Drink,” she said, pushing the flask towards him, having finished preparing the rations.

“Rey -”

“You drink this,” she said, as low on the forcefulness as she could manage. “And you eat this,” she said, pushing the bowl in his direction too. “Then you rest. And then we do the talking. After.”

* * *

Once he was asleep, she checked up on her burning hip. The cut wasn’t too deep, even though the electrical current hadn’t been pleasant. Still, she wasn’t willing to use any of their limited bacta patches on herself. She used the back of the swab she’d used for Ben to clean it up a bit, deciding to forgo a painkiller. If anything, the pain should help keep her awake. The wind had picked up and became a muted roar from outside the opening of their little shelter. That helped too.

It was about an hour into a vigil that she suddenly remembered that she was technically here with her enemy. They were still enemies. They hadn’t talked and now they were really here, together, in-person, and she wasn’t trying to stab him. She jerked at the realisation, looking over where Ben’s form was lying, sleeping.

Rey remembered what Luke Skywalker had told her. About how he’d stood above his sleeping student, seeing what was to come, desperate to prevent it, and for a single moment…

She pulled her knees tighter. Somehow, she almost wished she could even consider doing what Skywalker had done. She wished she could seriously debate the merits of showing mercy to a helpless enemy. But sitting here, in a damp, dark cave with the man who was meant to be her enemy sleeping after she had crossed half the galaxy to save him… she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. Rey wasn’t going to strike him down. She doubted Ben could kill her. And she didn’t hate him, nor did she think he was a monster. And it was terrifying. After Crait, there had still been a semblance of certainty. She was with the Resistance now, she would do as they bid and fight the forces of darkness. That could be her… her role, her way of fitting into all this. Who she was.

And now? What was she? A rogue Jedi? A Resistance fighter who would soon return to the fold? Something else entirely?

Why was it Ben who could make her take these leaps into the unknown? And why couldn’t he be awake right now to reassure her she wasn’t a fool for doing so?

She realised she had started crying.

* * *

In the morning, Ben woke up as she sat slumped, watching him. When he first tried to speak, he barely got a word out - his throat was so dry. She handed him the water and went about preparing rations.

“Eat something,” she said, handing him the cooked up rations carefully, not intending to lose any of it.

He hesitated before accepting. “Have you -”

“I’m not injured,” said Rey, ignoring the dull thudding pain of her hip. “Besides, I’m used to going without food.”

His forehead creased in pain that had nothing to do with his leg, but she made it clear that it was pointless to argue with her with a pointed look. Reluctantly, he accepted the food, before tearing into it hungrily.

She watched him eat, the questions she’d kept at bay the night before burning inside her now, as well as the big one, almost impossible to articulate. _What next? What are we now? Where do we go from here?_

“You need to eat something too,” he said when he’d finished.

She shook her head immediately. He was about to object when she cut him off - “Later, I will. I need to know whether there’s anything else to eat out there. Where exactly are we?”

Ben looked like he wanted to argue further, but answered. “Te’nikiv.”

“Where?”

“It’s not well-known.”

 _Why’s the Supreme Leader of the First Order here then?_ “You know whether there’s a river nearby? Or anywhere? What about sentient lifeforms?”

Ben shrugged, then winced at the motion. “Not sure. I wasn’t planning on landing here.”

“If you can call that landing,” said Rey, in a weak attempt at a barb.

He gave her a look. “I know there’s sentient life somewhere on this rock.”

“Okay,” said Rey. “We’ll figure it out.”

She took a deep breath and dived straight into what she was really interested in.

“What happened?” asked Rey. “You disappeared from the Force, I couldn’t feel you any more. I thought you were -” She broke off, hearing how her voice trembled. Ben looked up to meet her gaze, and there was such a look of wonder in his eyes, his quivering, lips parted. She hastily continued. “And then you reappeared and you were fighting and…”

“I spoke to Skywalker.”

Oh. “How?”

“There’s a place… close to here… like where you went. When you were asking the lightsaber to be healed. It’s a place strong in the Force.”

“Why did you go?”

“For… guidance.”

Rey nodded, more questions on her mind but knowing there were more pressing matters. “And then?”

“My knights… I told them I’d be gone. They ambushed me when I was flying away, I barely managed to crash-land here. When I was getting out of the ship, it was on fire and - and something hot fell on me, burned into my leg. I was fighting them when you appeared.” He frowned. “How did that happen? It shouldn’t be possible for you to - to stay on my end.”

“We’ve theorised about it before,” said Rey, finding this the least interesting part of the entire sorry tale.

“Yes, but the energy it should take -”

“- is a lot. I know. And it’s the same with us constantly connecting or passing around objects or whatever. This was just the next step, really.”

“The next step of what?”

She paused, unable to answer.

“It feels different, now. It feels drained.”

Rey didn’t have to ask what he meant, because she could feel the same thing. The bond between them wasn’t gone, exactly, but it was muted, far less present than the roar it had been in the past. She didn’t like it. “Maybe we pushed it.”

Ben frowned, then briefly shut his eyes as if the very motion had hurt him. “Maybe,” he murmured quietly. “But which one of us -”

“Neither!” Rey exclaimed, getting annoyed. “Or both! Maybe it’s a present from the cosmic Force to make sure you don’t just die on me! Which was a big possibility, given how your lackeys decided to _kill you_.” She grimaced at him. “Why would they _do_ that?”

He looked at her with that familiar strange mix of emotions, the bemusement and anguish and even _surprise_. Maybe at how obvious the concern and fear had been in her words.

Rey was gonna have to deal with all this sooner or later. And she had no idea how.

“They didn’t give me a list of reasons,” said Ben wryly.

“So what, they just silently attacked? I _heard_ stuff through the bond.”

“Yeah, but it was just -” He paused, and sighed. “They made some comments about the lightsaber. About not being sure what team I was playing for. I said it was Darth Vader’s but…”

Rey stared at him, then fell back on the ground, her hands digging into the small rocks as her elbows complained. “So it was my fault,” she said, voice hollow.

“That’s a stretch.”

But she believed it all the same.

* * *

“Rest,” said Rey. “I’ll check out the rest of this cave.” She soon came back with results. “Underground water source,” she said with a grin, holding up her sloshing water. “The Force really is with us, huh?”

Ben’s lips twitched as he looked on her enthusiasm with something approaching fondness. “Never got that impression, myself.”

“Trust me, it’s been a rough sell a lot of the -” Rey stopped. “Bad smell,” she muttered.

Ben looked confused, then hurt. “Under the circumstances, I couldn’t -”

“Not you!” she interrupted in exasperation. “The thing last night. The dead thing last night. Kriff, what was that? Some kind of bird?” She jumped to her feet and ran outside of the cave, holding her nose as she inspected the carcass. The thing might’ve been dead for a while, but not a _long_ while. _Definitely_ some kind of bird.

Rey ran back in. Ben watched her in bemusement as she grabbed her blaster. She paused to look down at him, ready to run out again.

He eyed the blaster. “Do you mind telling me -”

“There’s birds here.” She raised the blaster. “Gonna go hunting. And scouting. And - and trying to salvage something from that ship of yours, if there’s anything left. Communications array would be nice. Can you not die until I get back?”

“I’ll try,” said Ben. She nodded and was half-way to the exit when he spoke again. “Rey?”

She turned around again, impatient. “Yes?”

“Be careful.”

It didn’t take long for Rey to walk back to Ben’s burnt ship. There was a small black box, miraculously unburnt despite the soot and ash. The broken pieces of his lightsaber lay inside.

There was nothing else to be salvaged. But she took the box with her.

At least she managed to shoot a bird on the way back to the cave.

* * *

It took a while for them to figure out where they needed to go, from Ben’s memory and her expeditionary missions they mapped a course that should take them to a town of some kind. Given Ben’s wounds it would be rough going, but when they’d filled up the spare containers from the ship with water and the promise of more food in the form of those long-necked birds, they should be all right for the trip.

Despite the dire circumstances and the pain they both had to deal with, Rey couldn’t quite lie to herself well enough to pretend like some part of her wasn’t enjoying being around Ben - better yet, working with him. She didn’t tell him as much, obviously. That might lead to them talking about… about what came next, about why Rey had rescued him and was now helping him, about what they were to each other and what they would do when they found their way back to their respective sides of the war.

But it was hard to ignore where they stood. The war infected everything and eventually wormed its way into every conversation.

“We need to take care once we get closer to the settlement,” said Ben one evening. He had a hand on his thigh wound and almost seemed to be prodding it, as if trying to see how bad the pain was. Even when he winced and made a horrible face, he was soon back at it. Rey wanted to go over and slap his hand and tell him to stop. She’d put too much effort into bandaging the wound for this kind of nonsense.

“Why?”

“The First Order controls this planet.”

A shiver ran down her back at those words, which had never boded well for her. “You control them, though. Isn’t that good?” _For you?_

He met her eyes. “Is it?”

She stood up, feeling suddenly irritated. “You’re the one who should know,” she very nearly snapped and started walking away.

“Where are you going?” he called.

“Get some more shrubbery,” she shouted back. There wasn’t much, on this barren plain. But occasionally, they stumbled across enough dead wood to come very close to being warm.

* * *

The next evening -

“What about the lightsaber?” he asked.

“What?” They had put Ben’s back together again, with the double-hilt in her satchel so they could use it whenever they needed.

“Yours,” he clarified. “You’ve got the parts for it in your satchel, I saw.”

“Oh,” said Rey with a frown. “Well, I’d just gotten all the parts. I was planning to work with a mechanic to put them together.”

“We can do it. Even here. I saw your tools.”

Rey hesitated, then nodded.

* * *

So they began working on lightsaber again, even now they were together, trekking through the wilderness. The nights they didn’t have shelter from the wind were miserable. The days when they didn’t pass anything that was possibly flammable promised bad evenings. Still they carried on, putting together all the screws and little circular pieces and making sure the circuit was working properly. Ben confessed that last time around, he hadn’t had to do all this himself - most of the pieces came prearranged for the young Jedi apprentices. So this was new to both of them.

One evening, Rey had been working on the lightsaber and hadn’t even realised how cold it had gotten. Only when she was shuddering so hard she felt like she was about to shatter her bones did she notice, hugging herself as tightly as she could.

Ben took off his cloak and handed it to her. She stared at it, then at him, not moving.

“You’re shivering,” he said.

She scowled and took the cloak from him. “Thanks,” she muttered. It was like what he’d worn in the forest, nice, huge sleeves and a big hood. She put it on and then fiddled with the hood. It dropped down and right over her eyes and most of her face.

Everything was dark, but she heard a muffled sound from Ben’s general direction. She reached up and removed the hood off again, seeing Ben press his lips together very firmly as if trying not to smile.

“Did you just _laugh_ at me?”

“No.”

“You did,” said Rey and glared at him with little venom. Ben didn’t quite smile back, but his lips quirked as he watched her arrange the hood. Rey wouldn’t even say how much it had helped. Even though the cloak was very warm.

* * *

Eventually Ben told her a few of the other things his knights had shouted at him. About the order to stop abducting children. About Ben’s decision to let the children go. That had been the final straw, it seemed like. Ben didn’t say, exactly, but Rey could imagine him rushing distraught from the hangar after everything was over, knowing what he had done and what his fellow officers must think of him now. Less sure than ever of what he was or what he was doing and rushing to find a place to communicate with the dead, in some desperate desire to find… what? Resolution? Absolution?

He wouldn’t tell her what he had talked to Luke about. And sure, it was personal. But Rey wanted to know. Rey wanted to know what was going through Ben’s mind at the moment, what he had been thinking when he’d sought out his dead uncle whom he had hated right after letting stormtrooper trainees escape. His successive acts of kindness may have doomed him in the eyes of his knights - and, if some of Ben’s remarks were anything to go off, the rest of the Order - but for Rey, they felt like hope.

Not that there wasn’t enough to worry about here. For the most part, succulent birds aside, they hadn’t encountered any animals or much life at all. When she almost tripped over a scorpion that looked very much like the poisonous ones on Jakku, she had to reassess the ecology of this entire place.

“Here,” said Rey, throwing a pill to him, his hand whipping up to catch it and enclose it in his large fingers. “Chew that. Couldn’t afford them, but they’re meant to act as protection for toxins you’re likely to come across from sand-dwellers.”

Ben began chewing. “What happens when you don’t have them?”

“You don’t die. Just have a murderous two or three days, almost starve, and then hopefully eventually develop immunity.” Rey shrugged. “Okay, sometimes you just die.”

Her tone had been flippant, but she was aware of how his eyes searched her face. It was weird, being watched like this. Not _bad_ weird, not entirely anyway. Just like… like he _saw_ her in ways other people didn’t.

* * *

Progress remained slow and there were days when Rey wondered whether they’d ever stumble across anything approaching civilisation. It helped that Ben’s wounds were healing fairly well and he could mostly walk without aid now. Her hip barely stung any more when she moved. Still, she sometimes voiced her doubts on whether Ben was _really_ sure there was anything like civilisation on this rock, and Ben of course had to spout a lot of information about this little known planet to prove he indeed knew what he was talking about.

And yes, even on this barren rock, Ben knew his history.

“It’s the kind of place where things never changed,” said Ben quietly. “All the New Republic’s big words, but there’s some places their influence never stretched. And it was the site of a contingency plan in the event of the collapse of the Empire, which eventually would lead to the First Order.” He let out a small sigh. “So the old documents say anyway. Nothing but a trail of rumours and destroyed evidence. But once upon a time, Palpatine must’ve taken an interest in that planet.”

“Who’s Palpatine?”

“The name that originally belonged to Darth Sidious. The emperor of the…” He paused. “Empire.”

Rey snorted. Ben’s head turned immediately and as his gaze travelled from her mouth up to her eyes, his lips curved into something that was very nearly a smile too. Every time tension bled from his face it transformed him.

“So the war continues, one generation to the next,” he went on. “Well. I don’t know the details. Many are lost.”

“You still know so much.”

“I’ve been reading a lot recently. Trying to figure things out.”

“Has it helped?”

He shrugged. “I hope so.”

She lay back on the ground, always aware of his presence as he leaned back against a rock close by. The night sky twinkled with a stunning amount of stars, illuminating their surroundings enough that it barely seemed night at all. There were way more here than she had ever seen on Jakku, pinpricks of light of varying intensity and various shades - she briefly tried to identify some, straining her mind to figure out which ones she might’ve been able to recognise from all those hours she’d spent looking up. But it was a hopeless task.

* * *

“Once you have all the major pieces intact,” said Ben the next night, “it’s more like… feeling how they fit together.”

Rey raised her eyebrows at him. “It’s still a machine.”

“But it’s got something living inside. It’s simply a matter of using the Force to bring the pieces together. It’ll be easy enough for you.”

Rey shrugged. Tonight they had found a cave, which should have helped with the cold but she was shivering. The dimming light and all the smoke she had inhaled was making her drowsy, but the cold was keeping her from relaxing entirely. She glanced at Ben, then met his eyes properly when she saw he was staring at her.

“Still not used to the cold, I guess,” she said.

He didn’t answer, an indecipherable expression on his face. No encouragement, no disavowal. Just… waiting.

 _For me_.

She got up and clambered around the fire, sitting down next to him, keeping just the slightest of distance between them. As she leaned and put her head on his shoulder, she could feel how stiff he was, how frozen. The bond between them vibrated and through it she could almost experience his tension, his _fear_ , for himself. Rey snuggled against him, made herself comfortable. It helped with the cold.

They sat there a long time.

* * *

The barren twigs they clambered through were the closest they’d gotten to an abundance of life on this planet, and despite the absence of anything that might be termed green Rey was more than happy to scoop up as much wood as she could carry and take it with them as firewood. The branches brushed against her face and she could feel Ben’s eyes on her as she stumbled forwards, barely seeing through the maze of twigs.

It wasn’t a lot of fun walking like that for the rest of the day. Rey had refused him to carry any but the smallest twigs given how much he struggle with walking at all. And she was stubborn enough that even when Ben told her they didn’t need all this firewood, they’d be fine with less, she clung on resolutely to her branches.

Ben was still happy enough to enjoy the rewards of an actual decent-sized fire that night. In the light of the flames, he carefully examined her face - and she scowled at him in response.

“You have a cut,” he said.

“What? Where?”

“Your cheek. Must be the branches.”

“Oh,” said Rey, automatically reaching up to prod at her face.

“Don’t do that,” said Ben, shifting closer to her with a frown.

“It doesn’t matter. It’ll heal,” she said, her fingers coming from her right cheek with blood.

“Here, let me -” Ben was holding a small wipe, but he hesitated, hand outstretched a handspan away from Rey’s cheek. Their eyes met as Rey could feel her heart beat all the faster, and she was pretty certain his was too.

“Go ahead,” she said, then realised it had barely come out a whisper, and several registers too deep. Her tongue jutted out, wettening her dry lips in a nervous gesture. She felt rather than heard Ben’s sharp intake of breath, the way his gaze dropped sharply to her lips and then up again, his own mouth opened. She shivered, not knowing whether it was the cold or something else entirely.

Ben’s hand removed the distance between them slowly deliberately, and when the wipe finally made contact with her face she shivered again. It was cold, dabbing against her right cheek, but Ben applied it so gently, so gradually, even though she could feel the big fingers behind the wipe, all his strength suppressed as he drew the wipe across her wound, methodically cleaning it. She couldn’t look away from his face, how his brow furrowed in concentration and his lips quivered with repressed emotion and his eyes seemed to drink in everything.

Every moment she was with him, the real, solid him became precious. And she didn’t want to give it up for anything.

“You still have some on your -” Ben gestured.

Rey blinked, brow furrowing for a moment in confusion, then followed his gesture to the tips of her right hand, indeed still slightly bloody. It took her a moment to collect herself enough to reach out, feeling the back of her hand gently coming to rest against Ben’s knees, all casual like it meant nothing. And again his gaze was everywhere, on her hand on his knee and her eyes and all of her. His jaw tensed for just an instance, then he bent down a little to carefully dab the tips of her upturned fingers. As he did so, his fingers brushed hers and he almost flinched, tension galore reverberating through him. She let him finish, then reached out for the wipe.

“I should take it. My blood, after all.”

He frowned at her. “What?”

“You’re meant to dispose of it, right? People say you shouldn’t get bodily fluids mixed up.”

Whatever he had been about to say must have gotten stuck in his throat because he quickly whipped up his other hand and coughed repeatedly into it, turning away from her. She watched him, somewhere between bewildered and embarrassed. It was times like this when she remembered their wildly divergent upbringings and one of the rare occasions she worried she was making a fool of herself.

When he looked at her, his cheeks were flushed and his gaze was turned downwards. “I’ve already touched the blood,” he muttered. “I’ll just get rid of it now.” To her regret, he stood up. She watched him go.

* * *

When they were almost ready for sleep, Rey decided to try again.

“You’ve fought the Knights of Ren, you know that there’s people in your own order who are trying to get rid of you.” Rey leant towards him, imploring. “And you’ve already worked with me, your enemy, which should be the hardest part. I’ll help you through the rest of it. However bad it is to return home, I’ll be there.” She reached out with her hand, slowly and deliberately. “Please.”

He looked at her hand, eyes wide, and it seemed like he was leaning towards her, as if unable to quite stop himself. His own hand twitched, like his muscles themselves were compelling him to reach out. And then he looked up at her eyes again in that way no one ever - _ever_ \- had looked at her before, like she was his whole galaxy. Like he wanted to make everything around them vanish so it was only the two of them. One day she thought he might succeed.

“What happens if I don’t?”

Didn’t what? Turn? Come home? She kept her hand there, despite the frustration that was clawing away at her. “You know I waited,” she said. “I’ve waited so much. But I’m done waiting.” And she pushed her hand forward a little, very nearly demanding. “I’m not going to give up.”

It was so easy to see when her words had an effect on him because they always seemed to shudder through him, like a ripple effect as they passed from her to him. Couldn’t he just do it? She was so tired, so weary of having to play this game every single time. Of edging closer to some kind of compromise before it fell apart because he wouldn’t stop them firing on the Resistance or she shattered his lightsaber or he couldn’t keep his goons under control. She just wanted to be with him.

And she was so tired of being alone.

And she hoped he could understand all that by just looking at her, because if he looked at her the way he did how could he help but look into her and right through her? How couldn’t he know?

“I’d never be accepted,” Ben whispered, because he was still searching for excuses. “I can’t go back.”

“I’ll accept you,” said Rey. “Isn’t that enough?” And a part of her asked - _why would it be?_ But it was all she had to offer.

* * *

Next morning, Rey woke up with her legs cramping. To her surprise, Ben was already up and around, packing together their possessions and preparing breakfast for the two of them - which consisted of cold bird. When she stood up and walked over to him, he turned to look at her - as if this were all entirely normal - and she saw he’d managed to get bird grease on his chin.

“You have some dirt there.” She reached forward almost without thinking, the grime on his chin bothering her despite a lifetime of way worse dirt on her own. It wasn’t _right_ on him though, she wanted to -

She only realised when her index finger was smudging away the dirt what she was doing, and as her treacherous gaze leaped up she noticed how he’d frozen, how his eyes were wide open as they stared down her, even as his chin leaned into her touch as if driven by instinct. His knees fell to the side and slid against her leg, forcing her to readjust as her other hand reached out and grasped his shoulder, and she nearly fell on him before realising she was almost in his lap. She gulped, gritting her teeth as she forced herself to go back to wiping the grime away. Like there was nothing odd about this at all.

They ate breakfast in silence as Rey imagined a universe where she could touch his face every day.

* * *

One evening, Rey was doing her lightsaber workshopping when Ben came over with a determined air about him, sitting cross-legged from her. She briefly looked up, wondered whether she should say something, didn’t, then went back to fiddling with screws.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Ben.

Rey didn’t say anything, figuring any of the answers that had come to her weren’t particularly nice or constructive. She slotted the end piece of the hilt into place and was satisfied by the clicking sound the circular piece of metal made. Soon she could finish the bottom half of the hilt and then try to fit in the crystal.

After a few minutes, she realised Ben still hadn’t said anything else. She looked up to him watching her, the determination tempered by uncertainty.

“What is it?”

Ben stared at her, seeming momentarily dumbstruck. Then he swallowed. “I don’t want to join the Resistance.”

Rey glared at him even as she shifted slightly, readjusting her position in readiness for another one of their talks. “Fine,” she said curtly. “Could you stop leading the First Order?”

He hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

He nodded.

“Well,” she said, tone dry, “that’s something.”

“You say we’d take it one step at a time. But what would those steps be?”

Rey breathed in loudly as she searched for the two pieces that should slot together to form one half of the hilt’s side. “I’m not sure you know what that phrase means,” she said. “If you want an exact plan of what happens once you defect, I don’t have one. We’ll have to figure out as we go.”

“As we go.”

“It’s worked up until now, hasn’t it?” She looked up again to see his eyebrows raised.

“ _Worked_ is a bit… generous.”

“We’re both still here,” said Rey in exasperation. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You really want me to go with you to the Resistance?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“You talk to Leia and… figure that out.”

“Why would she even want to see me?”

“Because she loves you.”

Ben swallowed, doubt plastered all over him. “Most of the Resistance very much doesn’t.”

“Okay, so we’ll work on that.”

“Is this before or after they fire at me?”

“I’ll tell them not to.”

“And they’ll listen?”

“Yes.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I’ll _make_ them listen,” said Rey, then waved the screwdriver at him. “You’re overthinking this.”

“You aren’t thinking about this enough, it’s insane to expect -”

“You want an excuse not to do it. I’m not going to give you one.”

Ben clenched a fist then unclenched it slowly, flexing his fingers as he grimaced. His gaze wavered between her and the ground. “It’s - it’s not hard to find them.”

“You have to take the first step, Ben. It becomes easier then.”

“How can you know that?”

“It’s - it’s -” She struggled to find the words, _knowing_ she’d been there - not quite there, but somewhere - somewhere like the sand of the desert where every step is a struggle and your feet sink in and it’s so hard to move - “You feel trapped. And you _can_ let go of that.”

“How do you _know_?” asked Ben, sounding frustrated.

“Because I never left Jakku,” she snapped, scowling at him. “I never even tried. Maybe I could have stolen something, maybe I could’ve made it work. But I was stuck.” She took a deep breath, the screwdriver clanking against the bottom of the two lightsaber pieces as she trembled. “Once I left, everything happened and - and I was swept along, I didn’t know… But I found things to grasp on to. Friends and… and something to fight for. And for the first time, I was making choices. I didn’t even realise at first, I just did whatever was there. But then,” she took a deep breath as a tremor ran through her, “I chose you. I went to you. And despite… everything, I don’t regret that. I never have.”

He stared at her, mouth open, and maybe it was the strong wind but he seemed to lean towards her. The distance between them decreased, then came to a standstill. Ben licked his lips, looking at her as if he were a lost traveller and she was his only way home. Which probably wasn’t too far off the mark.

It was a long moment before he seemed to become aware of himself again and withdrew a little, glancing at the lightsaber components and the fire they had started and the entrance to the cave through which the wind howled. “All right,” he said. “I’m at the Resistance. They’re not shooting at me. What then?”

Rey shrugged, then remembered something. “You have to apologise to Finn.”

Ben gave her a non-plussed look. “Excuse me?”

“You sliced open his back. Almost killed him. He’s my friend, so you apologise to him.”

His brow furrowed and he needed another moment or two to make the connection. “Oh, the stormtrooper.”

“His name is Finn!”

Ben made a face. “He _betrayed_ -”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing if you defect to the Resistance?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

He struggled to find an answer for a moment, gave up. “It just is.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “He’s my friend and he has plenty of reasons not to like you. Do it for my sake or, better yet, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“They _all_ have plenty of reasons not to like me,” said Ben. “That’s the issue.”

“Then you’ll have to apologise to them too. And try to make things better.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

“I never said it’d be easy. Doesn’t mean it won’t be worth it.”

He tilted his head as he looked at her. “Worth it how?”

Rey looked back at him. “There’s plenty of things you can’t get with the First Order you can get with the Resistance.”

“Like what?”

“Friendship. Affection. The reward of doing the right thing. Love.”

Ben’s eyes widened a little as he continued to gaze at her. “You make a convincing case,” he said softly. “All right then, apologies.”

“Starting with Finn.”

“How exactly would you like me to apologise? Should I write a letter?” he asked a tad sardonically.

“No. Face to face.”

“That’ll be fun, I’m sure.” Yet for some reason, he didn’t sound particularly bothered at the notion.

* * *

The next night, she found out why.

“You know I can’t just leave, right?” he said, just as she had finished inspecting the piece of cloth she had fortuitously found under a rock and was tying it around a neck. “Someone worse will take charge. And then what?”

“I bet this would make a good veil too,” said Rey. “I could hide most of my face like -” She demonstrated, making the pieces of fabric flutter onto most of her face with help of the wind as she tried to unsuccessfully cover her hair. When her eyes were clear again, she saw that the corners of Ben’s lips had moved up in to what might even be described as a smile.

“Rey,” he said, trying to sound serious.

“Save it for another night, Ben.”

“We can’t put this off forever.”

“ _I’m_ not putting it off. I’m just getting tired of debating it. At the end of the day, it comes down to your choice. Which _you’ll_ have to make.”

* * *

The next day they finally spied civilisation bustling on in the distance, and by night they had arrived at the town. They stayed low, peering around a conveniently placed stone down into the valley where the town’s life unfolded. The town’s life, which included plenty of stormtroopers pushing civilians around. They watched as a stormtrooper threw a young man to the ground, not much younger than Rey and proceeded to bash in his face with a blaster.

“I can order them to stop,” said Ben.

Rey kept her hand on his forearm. “You know that’s a bad idea.”

He looked at her, seething as his lips pressed together. “I can tell them who I am.”

“They’ll believe you? You don’t even have that dumb helmet, without it you just look like some guy with dark hair and a big nose.” Ben’s face contorted into something that was very nearly a pout as Rey reconsidered. “A very large guy. With dark hair and a big nose.”

“Thanks for that.”

She pulled him around, then pushed him back against the stone, realising only then how her fist was pulling his robes and how close they were, him breathing heavily as he loomed over her.

“You want to help? Then you learn to be smart,” said Rey. She beckoned him. “Come on. Watch. We don’t focus on taking out stormtroopers.”

“Why?”

“We know you have more than enough. And we also know they’re just the ones following the orders, not the ones making them.” She paused, the awareness of whom she was speaking to sometimes inescapable. “There’s always ones who could be caught in the crossfire. But they’re not the targets.”

“Then what is?”

Rey pointed out the dish. “See that? Communications tower, First Order regulation. We want to isolate them. Locate the leaders, any officers, then do a quick two-for-one and target both at the same time. If all goes well, you end with a bunch of stormtroopers without leadership and a folk rioting.”

“Seems like you’re not giving people much of a choice whether to participate in your rebellion.”

“It can go horribly wrong,” said Rey quietly. “But that’s what you do when you’re vastly outnumbered.”

“I know what happens next,” said Ben. He pointed at a small opening, a square in the town. “See that?” Rey nodded. Now he pulled her back behind the rock, considering her seriously. “It’s where they’ll land when they stop receiving communications. For a population this size, you don’t need a lot. A ship or two. They storm out from that ship and then the violence starts. If the townspeople don’t fight back and there’s nobody who could feasibly escape to spread the word, the First Order may simply order a few executions, raid the houses and leave the people otherwise untouched. If they _do_ fight back, or even if they’re simply unlucky with who exactly is leading First Order reinforcements, the entire place gets burnt to the ground. And they all die.”

Rey shivered. “This is what you stand for?” she hissed.

“I’ve changed protocol,” said Ben. “But I doubt they’ll still be following it given my absence, don’t you?”

“They didn’t always follow protocol even _when_ you were in charge.”

“How does your Resistance plan to win if it is so easily crushed?”

“Usually we’d coordinate on a planetary scale,” said Rey. “Doesn’t need a lot of us. More than two, though. Here…” She frowned. “What if we seize the communications tower?”

“What?”

“You know First Order protocols, plus we’re both more than capable of using mind tricks… Should be easy.”

Ben frowned at her. “And then what?”

“I can get in touch with the Resistance.”

“Rey -”

“Ben, you said you would. You said you’d try.”

And Ben reluctantly nodded.

* * *

“This is a terrible plan,” said Rey.

Ben gave her a look of _that’s what I’ve been saying_. “Rey?”

“What?”

“We’ll make it work. But… you should have a lightsaber of your own.”

“What,” said Rey, “you don’t want to share?”

Ben shook his head. “I want you to have something of your own.”

“It’s…” She sighed. “Not ready.”

“Rey. You built it well. It’ll work.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

He leaned forwards. “You already fixed a lightsaber. Done things with the Force most Jedi can’t even dream of. You’re already far worthier of the title Jedi than any of them. But you don’t even need the word.”

Rey snorted disbelievingly. “I don’t need the flattery. I need to live up to an insane legacy I never even _wanted_.”

“You don’t! That’s your gift, you don’t need to -”

“But now I do! Now that’s me! Everybody keeps saying -”

“Why are you listening?”

“Because that’s my duty! If they can’t believe I’m a Jedi -”

“Don’t you understand?” said Ben, a passion in his voice, frustration making the words tumble out of his mouth. “Don’t you see? You don’t need them, they need _you_. Without you, they’re just some legacy. A myth scattered with the wind. It’s a name, that’s all they have. But you’re alive, Rey. Don’t you see? It’s all you. Everything is _you_.”

“You really -” She tried again. “How can you believe that?”

He shook his head in gentle disbelief. “How can I not?”

* * *

Rey remembered what Ben had said as she spread out the cloth with all the components on them. There wasn’t anything small left, just the basic parts of what made a lightsaber. Now all she had to do…

She sat down cross-legged, aware of Ben standing a few feet away, watching her. Holding out a hand over the pieces, she closed her eyes, called to the Force. By now it came easily to her - just a second or two of concentration and it was there, ready for her to request its help. As it flowed through her and onto the cloth, she could feel the pieces rising and smoothly fit into each other, each catch sliding perfectly into the next. It didn’t take long before she opened her eyes, hand held out under where the pieces had been and ready to catch the hilt when it dropped down.

Rey stared down at the assembled lightsaber in her hands. The hilt was dark, cool and smooth to the touch, the rotating wheel of the switch pressing into the skin of her thumb. She got to her feet, looked over to where Ben was waiting. He nodded at it, in a _go on_ kind of way.

Her brow furrowed as her thumb toyed with the rotating switch. She exhaled and activated it, igniting the blade.

A pause.

“Oh,” said Rey. She stared at it. “It’s yellow.”

“Huh,” said Ben. He stepped closer to look at it more carefully, as if not even caring that this was very much a live and dangerous weapon.

“Huh what?”

“It’s not a colour typically associated with Jedi.”

“Oh,” said Rey again and frowned. “Does that mean I’m a Sith now?”

“Force give me strength,” muttered Ben, rolling his eyes. “No. Obviously.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“I have - _had_ \- a red lightsaber and it doesn’t make me a Sith.”

“Okay. But… is it a colour associated with the Dark Side?”

Ben shook his head. “To the best of my knowledge, it’s associated with neither.”

“Oh,” said Rey a third time. “And that means…”

A shrug. “I suppose you’ll have to figure that out.” His lips quirked as he considered her. “What would you have done if I had told you that you’re a Sith now?”

She tried to bite down a smile. “I don’t know a lot about them. So I think I would’ve done some research.”

“Always good to know what Dark Side _cult_ you’re joining in advance.”

Rey looked down as a grin fought its way through - it felt like he was teasing her for all the disparaging insults she’d managed to throw at his allegiances over the weeks. Which wasn’t exactly _funny_ but… She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Yet when her gaze strayed up to see Ben’s answering half-smile, the grin stayed in place. A chuckle squeezed its way out of her throat.

“Better you do your research before you join them,” she said. “You could get in all sorts of trouble.”

“Yes,” said Ben, tone dry. “You could.”

Their initial careful advance into the town had gone smoothly. Nobody even seemed to notice them or their odd, tattered garments - or at the very least they decided not to care. They soon managed to hustle new, less conspicuous arrangements, stuffing their old clothes into their bags and slinging them over their shoulders. Ben gave his black cloak a somewhat wistful look as he placed it carefully on top as Rey rolled her eyes. A quick scout of the town later and they were good to go.

* * *

All things considered, the communications tower wasn’t heavily guarded. The majority of the troops seemed to be scattered around the town or in the shack in the town square they had requisitioned. From what Ben said, it didn’t seem like they’d been there for particularly long and hadn’t integrated yet into the fabric of the town’s life. Rey wondered what exactly was important enough about this planet to earn it a permanent base for the First Order, given that it wasn’t exactly a central location. But for now, she was happy enough to follow Ben’s lead as they essentially talked their way past most of the guards. It was only in the control room itself that they’d had to knock out two stormtroopers and a single unmasked officer, even here managing to turn off the ominous beeping sound that had started with their entry almost immediately thanks to Ben’s expertise.

Rey, for her part, was elated as she typed in her codes and sent a distress call to the Resistance. “It’s through!” she said with a grin. “We got it through. The Resistance knows!”

“So does the First Order,” said Ben, looking considerably less elated, face ashen. He looked up at Rey. “They were coming here, Rey. The alarm sounded long enough, one of them must have gotten to the switch. They’re almost here. Somehow, they must’ve had tech that could tell…” He swallowed just as a loud bang came from the direction of the door. They both spun around.

The corridor extended to two sides, each less welcoming than the other. “We need to get out of this building first,” said Rey.

“And then what?”

“Then - then we protect the people.”

There were too many to ward off, their path too hopeless by far.

“Ben!” yelled Rey.

She could feel rather than hear his assent. She tossed her lightsaber behind her head, knowing he’d be there to catch it, and reached out to take his, two blades igniting with a satisfying whirr.

She could feel Ben at her back, forging forwards a path with a vicious speed as she spun the lightsaber around, from one hand to the other, twisting her arms as the bolts bounced off the lightsaber and hit their targets steadily, with each canister or wooden railing hit creating more fire and obstruction for their pursuers to hunt through.

They ducked behind a pillar, surrounded by yelling and stormtroopers marching and barging through doors. Some obviously looking for them, others -

It was a single clear view. That was all it took for Rey to understand why they were here. A stormtrooper held a young boy’s wrist, dragging him away from his crying parents who held each other but faced the end of a blaster barrel, calling desperately after their boy as he was dragged towards the ship.

_They’re here to attack, get children anyway._

Time seemed to freeze as Rey heard that single prolonged child’s scream, her jaw clenching as the horror of what they had stumbled into dawned on her.

“You said -”

He held out his hands, the horror in his expression matching her own. “This wasn’t me. I swear, Rey, I told them -”

She nodded. “Okay.”

Ben looked so taken aback by her quick acceptance that she almost wanted to laugh - ridiculously, so unfittingly to their desperate circumstances. But there was no time even for that, no time at all.

“We have to do something.”

“Rey -”

She looked around with heavy panting breaths, even though she barely needed to with the Force feeding back to her all that was going on.

“They’ll find us in a moment,” said Ben.

Rey nodded, threw a glance over her shoulder at the town and then back to the ground again, thoughts whirling through her head without anything useful to grasp onto, anything useful to do… She gritted her teeth. It was time to make up her mind. “We can’t win against all of them,” whispered Rey, looking up at Ben, suddenly shaking so hard she was close to collapsing.

And he was there in an instant, hands on her wrist, steadying her. “Whatever you choose to do,” he said, “I’ll stand with you.”

And there was something about how earnest -

How trusting -

How loving -

\- he said those words, and the knowledge that whatever choice she made, he’d be there - he wouldn’t leave… That what he was offering her was his unconditional support, his unconditional -

Rey couldn’t help herself. She grabbed his tunic and yanked him down, pulling him towards her. Their mouths collided. Then they almost bounced off each other again given the sheer momentum - but Rey kept pulling him down, not even feeling the pain in her chin at the impact, stretching up to feel her lips on his, opening her mouth that her teeth scratched the skin just above his upper lip, bringing her hands down to his shoulders so that she could pull him even closer. After a half-second of shock, Ben responded, grabbing at her arms and bending further down to deepen their kiss, his tongue surging forward hungrily to crash against her teeth, to make its way between them as she tilted her head to find even more of him, so she could press further in, feel more of him -

Then their senses returned to them and they both disengaged as one, Rey jumping back a foot or two.

“Um,” she said.

“Fight or run?” asked Ben immediately. He still looked stunned.

She shifted from one foot to the other, throwing desperate glances behind her, then cursed. “We have to try,” she said.

Ben nodded. “I knew you’d say that.”

Rey felt a sudden twinge of annoyance. “You should have _told_ me so then.”

The corners of his mouth twitched and then broke into an actual smile. “Wouldn’t have gotten _that_ then, would I?”

She really wanted to kiss him again. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They got to the square just when the First Order’s reinforcements from the other side of the planet arrived. It was a single, big ship that had fired once already on an entirely defenceless, innocent civilian target. Neither of them were going to allow a second time.

In the few seconds they had to agree on a plan, they gripped each other’s hands and exchanged a last look. Then, Ben stepped into the open in the square, back in his First Order cloak as he extended a hand towards the massive ship. A moment later, its descent came to a shuddering halt.

Rey strained to keep it in place from her hiding place, both of them fighting together to keep it steady. It must’ve looked even more impressive than it actually was, since it seemed like only Ben was out there. So impressive, in fact, that when Ben roared, “ _Stand down_ ,” they couldn’t just shoot him down.

“I can bring down this ship. I can bring down every last one of them. Remember the tales you heard of Skywalker on Crait? How he was fired upon by thousands of guns and none could kill him?” A suitably dramatic pause. “They’re all true. You’re facing the man who finished him off.”

Rey was tempted to roll her eyes at what was less a generous interpretation of the truth and more an outright falsehood, but she was too busy being terrified at the possibility that Ben’s erstwhile colleagues would decided to take the risk.

“I am your Supreme Leader,” barked Ben. “Whoever you think you serve will answer to _me_. If anyone wishes to oppose me, they are welcome to speak now.”

A heady silence descended on the square as Rey gripped the lightsaber and her blaster even more tightly, eyeing each one of those tank guns in turn, determined to use the Force that not a single one of them could possibly surprise her.

But they yielded.

Ben and Rey had won.

* * *

Rey waited for him, still cowering in her hiding place as he went up to greet his subordinates. She snuck away back to the tunnel they had stood in before. Where they had kissed. She shut her eyes, exhausted and yet as excited as she had ever been. It was really happening. The Resistance would be there soon. She would take Ben and explain everything and they would explain all of this once and for all.

She opened her eyes. Ben stood before her. For a moment she thought he was real.

Her brow furrowed. “The force bond,” she said, voice not quite sounding like her own. She straightened up. “Ben…”

“Rey,” said Ben. She hated how she could instantly hear the regret in that single word, the longing, but also the resolve.

Rey almost fell back against the wall again, horrified. “No,” she said. “No. I can’t do this again.”

Ben shook his head immediately, taking a step forward with his hand stretched towards her. “It’s not like that this time.”

“Then what is it like? Why can’t you just come with me?”

“They’ve already forged on without me, Rey, can’t you see -” He licked his lips as his outstretched hand trembled. “I was right,” he said, shaking his head. “Even between the two of us and the Resistance and - and defected stormtroopers, there’s still more of them. Too many of them.”

“Without you’d there, they’d fall apart! They’ll splinter and we’ll win.”

“But what if they don’t?” His eyebrows lifted as his expression gradually became imploring. “I want to. I - I want to leave it all behind. But - they, I led them. I need to - to make it right. And I can’t do that if I abandon the First Order. You said everything they did was _my_ responsibility now. And it is.”

“You can’t make them better,” Rey ground out, clenching her fists.

“I know that now. But I can destroy them from the inside. Like the - the stormtroopers. Rey, it’s the only way.”

“No, it’s not. Come with me, Ben. Let’s go to the Resistance and we’ll figure it all out from there.”

He swallowed, his eyes telling her he wanted nothing more than to accept. “This is the one chance I have of taking back the First Order. We can’t do things like before. They thought they finished off the Empire, but they didn’t - not really. They didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with, they didn’t manage to end it properly. I do and I can.”

Rey’s mouth opened, then shut again. She tried again. “They have to be destroyed. Completely.”

Ben nodded. “I agree.”

“Why?”

He searched for words, looking around with concern at things she couldn’t see before he found them. “You’ve been right all this time. I saw when I felt everything you felt and when you confronted me about the abducted children and… here.” He stepped forward again so that their hands touched. “It’s all I can do. Maybe then I’ll deserve to go home.”

Rey’s fingers tightened their grip on his. “Ben -”

“I need to go before the Resistance arrive,” said Ben softly. “I need to go now,.”

“You’re really… You’re not going back to them? Not really?”

He shook his head. “Never again. I’ll be back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Here,” said Ben, reaching to his hip and to the small pouch with his broken lightsaber. He held it out to her.

“Why?”

“It’s a piece of me. You should have it.”

Rey nodded, taking it then clasped his hand again. “That’s how we’ll end the war. Together. You’ll take it back and heal it some day, you understand?”

“I do,” said Ben.

He had to bend down pretty far to embrace her, his head turning to press against the side of her neck and his chin into her shoulder, his nose brushing against her right cheek, pushing through her hair enough to tickle her. She jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist, for his sake more than hers, and after a second his hands moved down to hold her legs firmly in place, his head sinking even further onto her shoulder as he took a deep, rasping breath - almost as if he wanted to inhale her hair. She could properly reach into his hair now, grab at the back of his neck where it had grown longer, closing her eyes as she leaned against him. They clung onto each other for a single moment of brightness. Then Rey lowered herself and they parted, but not before she had kissed him once more, the taste of his lips lingering. They held each other’s gazes until the connection faded and the First Order ships flew away, soon to be replaced with her friends from the Resistance. She greeted them as eagerly as she could, which wasn't very eagerly at all.

It wasn’t forever. Rey hated saying goodbye to him, again and again. And it wouldn’t ever not hurt. But at least this time she knew it wouldn’t be for long. That had to be enough.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I apologise for how long it is but apparently I can only get to a semi-happy ending in 50k words. It happens.


End file.
